Cookie policy
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or device by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Like most financial services organisations, we use cookies for a range of tasks. These include allowing you to browse between pages effectively, recording and storing your preferences and generally improving your online experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you. We also use similar technologies such as pixel tags and JavaScript to undertake these jobs.
If you visit our websites, we may deploy these technologies to provide an online service more suited to the device you visit on, as well as to prevent and detect fraud, and so keep you secure. When you visit our website, we collect information about your use of the site, such as information about the device or browser you use to access the site (including device type, operating system, screen resolution and so forth), the way you interact with it, and the IP address your device connects from. You may not be able to initiate or complete some activities within our secure online services unless these cookies or similar technologies are installed.
Some of the cookies we set are ‘session cookies’, which remain only for the duration of your browser session and are deleted when you exit your web browser. Others are ‘persistent cookies’, which remain on your device or computer for a period of time after you have exited your web browser.
First party and third party cookies
There are two ways in which cookies are set. First party cookies are those set by, or on behalf of, the web site you are visiting at that moment. Third party cookies are cookies that are set by another domain (that is, one other than the web site you are looking at).
Over the course of your visit to the Legal & General digital estate, you may visit different domains (for example, legalandgeneral.com and landg.com) on which we host different content or applications. These domains are owned by us, but may share cookies between them; this means that we use both first and third party cookies to maintain security and ensure we can provide you with the best service across our digital estate. We may also use third party cookies provided by our authorised third parties.
Anonymous and pseudonymous cookie data
The vast majority of data stored in the cookies placed by our web sites record anonymous information - that is, information that cannot be associated with an individual person. There are some occasions, like when we need to record your preferences, when we do need to record information in cookies that relate to you. However, whenever we do this, the cookie information is stored in a way that the data cannot be attributed to you, without linking it to additional information that is separately and securely stored on Legal & General systems. This is called pseudonymous data.
Cookies in emails
In addition to the cookies we use on this website, we also use cookies and similar technologies in some emails and push notifications. These help us to understand whether you have opened the email and how you have engaged with it; knowing which articles are most popular with our customers helps us to improve and optimise our content for the future. Cookies will also be set if you click on any link within the email.
Types of cookies
The cookies used by us are based on the International Chamber of Commerce guide for cookie categories:
- Strictly necessary
- Performance
- Functionality
- Targeting
What do cookies do for me?
‘Performance cookies’ collect information about how you use our website eg which pages you visit, and if you experience any errors. These cookies don't collect any information that could identify you directly - all the information collected is anonymous or pseudonymous. Performance cookies are not used to target you with online advertising; without these cookies, we can’t learn how our websites and applications are performing, and so help us improve your digital browsing experience.
In limited cases for online application issues, these cookies enable us to identify specific issues you may have had.
Some examples of performance cookies used on our websites are:
| Name of vendor | Description |
|---|---|
| Google Analytics and Google Universal Analytics |
Using Google Analytics cookies we are able to analyse user sessions on our website, such as traffic source, session duration, number of visits etc. Google Universal Analytics enables us to collect information about how visitors use our website, allowing us to make improvements where necessary. Using cookies, a randomly generated number is assigned on page requests on our website; with these we can analyse both visitor and campaign data. |
What if I don't want cookies?
If you want to disable all cookies, please be aware this may make browsing our websites slower and some of the features described above will not be available to you.
However, we understand that this is your decision and you can find more information on how to control your cookies via your browser settings at: http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/ and http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/