Use of Cookies

Cookie Policy

Bletchley Park’s website and apps use cookies, and by continuing to use our website or apps you will have been deemed to have agreed to our use of cookies subject to any overriding browser settings you may have.

1. WHAT IS A COOKIE?

When we provide services via the internet, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. To do this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example your computer or mobile phone. These include small text files known as cookies.

Cookies perform several functions, such as remembering who you are on a particular site (your welcome message), to keeping you logged in to your account screen on an e-commerce site (however, you should always log out if you are using a public computer).

They can help measure how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use, to follow which pages that you’ve read to see what parts of the site are popular or not and there’s enough capacity to ensure they are fast.

Advertising agencies also use cookies to find out if they have served you an advert from a particular brand on a site, or if you have seen a particular advert before.

In short, cookies are a way of providing statistics on site visits as well as some limited functionality that makes your site visit easier. When used properly cookies are an asset to a site visitor and a site owner. Most internet browsers automatically accept cookies but you can delete existing cookies from your browser and, by editing your internet browser options, choose not to receive cookies in future.

Please note that if you opt to disable some or all cookies, we are unable to guarantee that our website will operate.

2. OPTING OUT OF COOKIES

There are a number of options available so that you do not have to store any cookies at all. You can either set your browser so that it will not accept and store any cookie, or if you have a little more time and knowledge you are able to allow only certain ‘trusted’ sites to store cookies on your computer. These sites may include us (of course!), or the site where you carry out your online banking, or possibly your favourite news service.

It’s worth bearing in mind that if you decide to delete all of your cookies, then you will likely have to re-enter all of your usernames and passwords on all of the sites that you visit, which you previously didn’t even have to think about. As we mentioned before, cookies can be a real asset to your web surfing experience.

The Information Commissioner’s Office provides some advice about cookies and their use, but it also provides a link to ‘About cookies’ ( www.aboutcookies.org ) which is run by the law firm Pinsent Masons. This website provides even more information about cookies if you feel that this page and the ICO is not enough information for you, but it also details how you might delete any cookies that you find, and it also shows you how to allow those trusted sites to store their cookies on your computer.

3. USEFUL WEBSITES

www.aboutcookies.org – This website explains how you can delete and control the cookies that are stored on your computer.
Your online choices – Allows you to control your online behavioural advertising preferences.
Google Policies & Principles – Information on Google cookies
Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on
Third party cookies

To make it easy for you to use and share our website we embed features from other websites such as Facebook, Twitter and TripAdvisor. Browsing the Bletchley Park website may place cookies from these third party websites on your computer. Bletchley Park has no control over these cookies so it is not always possible to list them, and they are liable to change without notifying us.

Some of these cookies are used to support our online ticketing and checkout process, these cookies are session based and are used to remember your details as you proceed through the payment process.

We may refer to companies, organisations and public bodies and enable access to their websites directly from our website. Each company, organisation or public body operates its own policy regarding the sale of personal data and the use of cookies. If you have a particular interest in, or concern regarding the way your data will be used then you are advised to read the Privacy Statement on the relevant website.

4. ANALYTICS

Bletchley Park uses analytics software managed by third parties, these services use cookies in order to provide statistical reports about our site visitors. Current third party analytics software include:

5. GOOGLE ANALYTICS

We use Google Analytics to help us understand how visitors are using and engaging with our website and apps. This allows us to make improvements to our web services and your online experience.

The Google Analytics tracking tool uses a number of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics and does so without personally identifying individual visitors to Google or Bletchley Park. If you wish to opt-out of Google Analytics tracking please visit and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. More information on how Bletchley Park uses Google Analytics and related services can be found in our privacy policy.

6. FLASH COOKIES

Adobe uses a particular type of cookie called a ‘Local Shared Object’, which is typically collected if you watch a video for example that uses the Adobe Flash media player, i.e. an embedded YouTube video on a page that is being played via Flash. Please note that these types of cookie will not be found on iPads, which do not support Flash.

Have a look at Adobe’s website if you want to control Flash cookies on your computer. If you’ve got a Firefox browser you can also get an add-on to detect and delete Flash cookies.

7. ACCESSIBILITY

We aim to conform to level Double-A of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, which help make the web more user-friendly for all people.

Our website should display correctly in the current and previous two versions of Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari and Opera. There may be some areas that require you to have JavaScript turned on to work.

While we strive to adhere to standards for accessibility and usability, there are areas we are still working on to improve such as providing video and audio transcripts, audio captions and audio descriptions. If you have concerns or issues you wish to raise please us on [email protected].

8. PRIVACY POLICY

Bletchley Park is committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with their obligations under data protection legislation. The current data protection law is found in the Data Protection Act 1998 but with effect from 25th May 2018, the main data protection law will be the General Data Protection Regulation as supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018 and related laws.

The Bletchley Park privacy policy explains what information Bletchley Park collects about you and how it will be used. You can read our full privacy policy here.