Cookie policy
Cookies
Cookies are small files saved on your computer, phone or tablet that allow us to store information about how you use The National Archives Image Library website, such as the pages you visit or any preferences you set. They help us to provide you with a better experience.
We use some essential cookies in order to make the website work, and some that are optional, including analytics cookies. We need your consent to use some of them. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
Why do we use cookies?
We use cookies to improve the services that we provide and to ensure they work for you by:
- Measuring how many people are using these services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure they are working efficiently
- Enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task
- Recognising that you may already have provided a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every web page requested
We classify the cookies we use on our website in the following categories:
- Analytics cookies (optional)
- Essential cookies (non-optional)
We do not use any cookies for marketing or targeting purposes.
Analytics cookies
These allow us to measure how you use the website so that we can make improvements. We use Google Analytics but do not allow Google to use or share data about how you use the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous.
Analytics Cookies
| Cookie name | Description | Expiry |
| _ga_gtag_* | This cookie is used to throttle request rate | 1 minute |
| _ga | This cookie is used to distinguish users. | 2 years |
| _gid | This cookie is used to distinguish users. | 24 hours |
Essential cookies
These are essential to make our site work. You can disable them by changing your browser preferences, but some parts of the site, including core functionality, will not work as a result. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Essential cookies
| Cookie name | Description | Expiry |
| PHPSESSID | This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed. | Session |
| wordpress_test_cookie | This cookie is used to check if the cookies are enabled on the users' browser. | Session |
| gmtoffset | Specifies the Greenwich Mean Time offset, which is the number of hours and minutes that the time differs from Greenwich Mean Time (also called Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC). | Session |
| CWAT | This cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website | Session |