The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Statement of intent
2. Information on visitors
3. What is a cookie?
4. Submitting personal information
5. Access to your personal information
6. Users 16 and under
7. How to find and control your cookies
8. How do you know which sites use cookies?
9. How to see your cookie code

1. Statement of intent
From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, competitions, live chats, message boards and membership.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable us and our service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. We will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors
During the course of any visit to our site, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the education pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on a second visit.

3. What is a cookie?
When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for our services.

4. Use and storage of your personal information
When you supply any personal information to us (e.g. for competitions, services or membership) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to us will only be used by us and by our service providers. It will never be supplied to anyone externally without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to us and then we consider such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, we can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or e-mail provider about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a member. For safety reasons, however, we may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of our services for a period of six months. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other services (eg competitions), that information will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you are notified on our site that your information may be used to allow us to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that we may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information on the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional information.

5. Access to your personal information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected.

6. Users 16 and under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to our website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

7. How to find and control your cookies

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:
1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Privacy Tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Click on the 'Advanced' button
6. Check the 'override automatic cookie handing' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:
1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:
1. Choose View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Advanced tab
4. Scroll down to the yellow exclamation icon under Security and choose one of the three options to regulate your use of cookies.

In Internet Explorer 3.0:
You can View, Options, Advanced, then click on the button that says Warn before Accepting Cookies.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Set your options in the box that says Cookies.


8. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies
5. Click the View Cookies button

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0:
1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the General tab
4. Click Settings
5. View Files

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:
1. View, then
2. Internet Options
3. Under the tab General (the default tab) click
4. Settings
5. View Files.

Internet Explorer 3.0:
On your Task Bar, click:
1. View
2. Options
3. Advanced
4. View Files.

Netscape Communicator 4.0:
Netscape bundles all cookies into one file on your hard drive. You'll need to find the file, which it calls Cookie.txt on Windows machines.

9. How to see 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.