What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data given to your web browser by a website which may be stored as text files on your computer. Cookies are not programs and cannot collect information from your computer. They do not damage your computer and are defined as “a piece of text stored on a user’s computer by their web browser”.

A website may send cookie data to your web browser which may save it if your web browser’s preferences allow it to do so. To protect your privacy your web browser only returns a cookie to the website that sent you the cookie and does not send it to any other website. A website cannot access your cookie directory or information on your computer, instead relevant cookies are included by your web browser within each request you make to the website. A website can only obtain cookie data that your web browser sends to it.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

Google Analytics cookies

Google Analytics is a simple, easy-to-use tool that helps website owners measure how users interact with website content.

As a user navigates between web pages, Google Analytics provides website owners JavaScript tags (libraries) to record information about the page a user has seen, for example the URL of the page. The Google Analytics JavaScript libraries use HTTP Cookies to “remember” what a user has done on previous pages/interactions with the website.

Google Analytics supports two JavaScript libraries (tags) for measuring website usage: analytics.js and ga.js.

More information about the cookie usage of these two JavaScript libraries is available on the Google Analytics website.

WordPress cookies

WordPress cookies may be stored by your compute if you log in to the AMIS Hub website as an administrator, editor, author or subscriber.

On login, WordPress uses the wordpress_[hash] cookie to store your authentication details. Its use is limited to the admin console area, /wp-admin/

After login, wordpress sets the wordpress_logged_in_[hash] cookie, which indicates when you’re logged in, and who you are, for most interface use.

WordPress also sets a few wp-settings-{time}-[UID] cookies. The number on the end is your individual user ID from the users database table. This is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.

The cookies length can be adjusted with the ‘auth_cookie_expiration’ hook.

More information about WordPress cookies can be found on the WordPress website.

Managing your browser cookies

More information on how to manage your browser cookies is available via the links below.