When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your computer, mobile phone or tablet. These are known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
What are cookies?
Cookies are used to improve services for you by:
What do cookies look like?
If you click on a cookie you'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the website server that gave you the cookie.
How we use cookies?
Spatial NI uses a variety of cookies. Details about where we use them, why we use them and how long they will last is provided below.
All components of the Spatial NI platform
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use Spatial NI. We do this to make sure it’s meeting people's needs and to understand how we could meet those needs better.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on. We do not collect or store your personal details such as your name or address. We cannot identify who you are.
We do not allow Google to use or share any information we collect with other third parties.
Google Analytics
| Name of cookie | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| __utma | randomly generated number | 2 years |
| __utmb | randomly generated number | 30 minutes |
| __utmc | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| __utmx | randomly generated number | 18 months |
| __utmxx | randomly generated number | 18 months |
| __utmz | randomly generated number and information on how the site was reached (e.g. direct or via a link, organic search or paid search) | 6 months |
Further information on cookies set by Google Analytics can be obtained by visiting their website.
If you don't want Google Analytics to use information about you for the purposes of measuring website usage you can opt out:
Google analytics cookies opt out
Public Website
Spatial NI uses cookies to remember if you have received the privacy and cookie warning message so that this message doesn’t appear more than once per session.
| Name of cookie | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| sni_privacy_accept | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| NIGOV | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
Spatial NI NIMA Portal
Spatial NI uses cookies to facilitate the logging in process to the portal which uses Active Directory Federated Service (ADFS).
| Name of cookie | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| NIGOV | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| NIGOV_spatialni.gov.uk_%2F_wat | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| APSW-query | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| NIGOV_portal.spatialni.gov.uk_%2F_wat | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| RelayState | token | when you close your browser |
| esri_auth | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| MSISAuth | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| MSISAuthenticated | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| MSISIPSelectionPersistent | randomly generated number | 1 Month |
| MSISLoopDetectionCookie | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| SamlSession | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
Spatial NI uses cookies to remember if you have received the privacy and cookie warning message so that this message doesn't appear more than once per session.
| Name of cookie | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| sni_portal_privacy_accept | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| NIGOV | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
Spatial NI for INSPIRE
Spatial NI for INSPIRE uses cookies to give you a better experience when using the INSPIRE portal.
| Name of cookie | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| NIGOV | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| NIGOV_spatialni.gov.uk_%2F_wat | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| JSESSIONID | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
How to manage your cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by Spatial NI, or any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. Your browser is the way you access the internet for example Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how you can restrict or block cookies.
For information on how to restrict or block cookies on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
Alternatively, you will also find details on how to restrict or delete cookies on a wide variety of browsers, as well as more general information about cookies, on the About Cookies website.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the way our website works for you.
Cookies on social networking sites
We have a link at the bottom of the Spatial NI website to the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland Twitter site. Twitter may place cookies on your computer.
The social networking sites that Spatial NI links to are third party sites and Spatial NI does not have any control over the way that these sites use your data. You should read their respective privacy policies carefully to find out what happens to any data that is collected when you use these services and to consider whether you want to opt out.
Read the Twitter Privacy Policy