What are cookies?

Cookies contain small textual information that are placed on your computer or other device for a variety of purposes; these range from enabling users to access particular parts of a website and enhancing users’ experience to obtaining information on site usage by users. Cookies are not generally  used to identify you personally.

There are two types of cookies which we place on your device when you first visit our site: Essential cookies, in particular the site-operation cookies (which, for example,  enable smooth use of our complaint and number-checker service), and non-essential cookies, i.e. Google Analytics cookies. Other essential cookies may need to be placed on your device when you choose to use certain parts of our website, such as logging in to our registration database and connecting to social media via our website. Further details of cookies we use are provided below under The type, purpose and intrusiveness of our cookies.

Providing us with your consent for cookies

The law requires that we provide you with information on the cookies we use and obtain your consent to place non-essential cookies on your device. By clicking on the “Accept all cookies” button when you first visit our website, you are giving us your consent to both essential and non-essential cookies being placed on your device  . If you do not wish us to use non-essential cookies, you can turn these off easily by referring to the information provided in the “Non-essential cookies (Google Analytics)” section below.  Please note that if you clear your cache or browser history at a later point, you may be required to provide us with your consent again before you can use our website by clicking on the “Accept cookies” button.

Setting Your Preferences  - How to control and delete cookies 

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, you can disable all cookies by changing your browser settings. Please be aware that restricting or disabling cookies which are essential to the operation of our website may impact on the functionality of our website. You can restrict or disable cookies through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone, you will need to refer to your handset manual.

To opt-out of third parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.

The type, purpose and intrusiveness of our cookies:

Phone-paid Services Authority website (www.psauthority.org.uk)

Cookie		Name	Purpose		Intrusiveness	More information
Site operation cookie		ASP.NET_SessionId	This temporary session cookie is essential for the normal operation of the Phone-paid Services Authority website.		Minimally intrusive	The cookie is deleted once you close your browser. Details on Session IDs can be found on the Microsoft website.
EU cookie consent message		CookieControl	Cookie Control cookies. This cookie is set to remember the user's preferences about cookies.		Manually intrusive	This cookie expires after 3 months.
User authentication cookie		__RequestVerificationToken	This is an anti-forgery token (preventing CSRF attacks). It guarantees that the poster is the one who gets the form.		Minimally intrusive	The cookie us deleted once you close your browser.
Google reCAPTCHA		_GRECAPTCHA	This cookie is set by Google reCAPTCHA, which protects our site against spam enquiries on contact forms. Google’s privacy policy can be read here.		Minimally intrusive	This is a persistent cookie that persists in the browser for up to 6 months.
Google Analytics (optional)		_ga _gali _gat _gid	These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site.		Minimally intrusive	These arepersistent cookies expiring after 2 years. More information can be found on the Google Analytics website.