Website Cookie Policy

This website www.falmouth.ac.uk uses cookies to function, improve performance and enhance our users' experience.
At Falmouth we value transparency and our web users' privacy. You'll find clear guidance to help you understand the cookies we use, how they impact you and how to easily set and change your preferences, in the following sections of this page:

  1. What are cookies?: Summary of what cookies are and how they work.
  2. Falmouth's cookies: Details of types of cookies we use, why we use them, what they do, how they impact your access to the site, your experience, web functionality and privacy.
  3. Managing your preferences: Introducing our Cookie Controller. How to use it to Accept, Delete and Block cookies at a category level, in line with your preferences. How to manage cookies through your web browser instead.
  4. Changing your settings: How to access and change your cookie settings at any time, should you change your mind whilst visiting the site.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small piece of data that, with your consent, can be saved to your web browser's cookie folder by your computer or mobile device when you browse, visit or interact with a website. Here are five top things you should know about how cookies work:

  1. Cookies are usually small plain text files that contain: a website's URL, the max length of time a cookie can be active for and a randomised visitor number.
  2. They can help websites deliver core web functionality and user friendly tools, save preferences you've asked a website to keep such as form or login details, monitor how a website performs and how it's used by its visitors, for example by checking if web pages are loading and have received any views.
  3. Because they only store a small amount of specific information and use a random visitor number or ID they can't normally, or unintentionally, be used to track or reveal your identity or personally identifying information.
  4. Most only save data for the duration of your visit aka 'Session' and are then automatically deleted. Others can stay longer if you give them consent to do so.
  5. Most importantly: all cookies can be easily managed, deleted or blocked by you at any time by clearing the cookie folder in your web browser, or by changing your web browser's cookie settings to reflect your preferences.
  6. It's important to note that while some cookies collect optional data or provide optional functionality, to enhance your experience, others may impact your ability to access, navigate or use the website as designed. These include 'Performance cookies' which we rely on to monitor how our website and its content is working for our users.

Falmouth cookies

We like to keep things simple so we only use cookies we believe can help us improve our website and our users' experience. These include:

  1. Cookies that tell us whether our website is working and how it's being used aka 'Necessary cookies' and 'Performance cookies'.
  2. Cookies that help us provide users with access to tools and widgets that can improve their experience i.e. Live Chat, Google Maps, Unibuddy and YouTube aka '3rd party cookies'.
  3. Cookies that help us keep marketing activity efficient i.e. by limiting the number of times a Falmouth ad can be shown to you on Facebook aka 'Marketing cookies'.
  4. A full list of the cookies we use (split across our four cookie categories), their purpose, origin and duration can be found in the following tabs/below:

Managing your preferences

There are two ways you can manage your cookie preferences while visiting the www.falmouth.ac.uk site:

  1. Using the cookie controller pop-up we've integrated across our Falmouth site, or
  2. Updating your web browser cookie management settings

Both sections below will tell you how to Accept, Delete and Block cookies using each option.

Falmouth's cookie controller

Our cookie controller panel pops up when you first visit the website as a new user and gives you the option to either 'Accept all cookies' or turn cookies 'On' or 'Off' at a category level and 'Save cookie preferences'.

If the controller doesn't automatically pop up you can also access it at any time by clicking the settings icon on the bottom-left of the screen on all web pages.

The controller provides detailed guidance to help you update your preferences and functionality to help you action those preferences immediately in the pop-up. Each cookie category section tells you what the cookies in that category do and what the impact might be if you turn them off.

You won't automatically be opted in for cookies, you must give us your consent first by either clicking the 'Accept all cookies' button or turning cookies 'On' at a category level by using the toggles in the cookie controller pop-up. Without this consent we will block our cookies from being saved to your web browser. However, this is likely to affect your access to functionality, our capacity to provide a responsive service and a good user experience, so we recommend you consider these options carefully.

Exceptions

There are two exceptions to this rule: Necessary cookies and select 3rd party cookies.

As per guidance on this page and in the cookie controller pop-up, cookies within the 'Necessary cookies' category will automatically be set and updated any time you visit the website, as they are critical to making the website work.

Some cookies specified in the '3rd party cookies' category are set directly by the tool provider when you use the tool featured on our site i.e. Unibuddy, Discover Uni. Because they aren't set by us we can't prevent these cookies from being used without removing the tool from the website entirely. However, we've checked these cookies and their purpose is to provide functionality and monitor tool use and performance, in the same way as our own Necessary and Performance cookies would, which indicates that no personal identifiable data is used or collected without your consent.

Deleting cookies at a category level using the cookie controller pop-up is easy. Simply open the pop-up, navigate to the category of cookies you want to delete, switch the toggle button to 'Off' and click the 'Save cookie preferences' button at the bottom of the pop-up. This will automatically update your preferences, delete all cookies associated with that category from your web browser and save your preference to keep those cookies blocked until you explicitly change the toggle back to 'On' and 'Save cookie preferences' using the cookie controller pop-up.

Please note that this will delete all cookies associated with that category, which may impact your experience or web performance. A full list of cookies within each category can be found in the 'Falmouth cookies' section of this page.

It is possible to delete cookies at an individual cookie level, should you want to remove one or more specific cookies but keep the rest of the cookies within that category. However this can only be done by managing cookies through your browser. Details of how to do this can be found in the 'Managing cookies through your web browser' section of this page.

Exceptions

As per above 'Necessary cookies' and some specific 'Third party cookies' can't be deleted using the cookie controller pop-up, but can be deleted at website or individual level by managing cookies through your browser. Details of how to do this can be found in the 'Managing cookies through your web browser' section of this page.

Blocking cookies, to prevent them from being set any time you visit our website, is easy. Simply open the cookie controller pop-up and change your permissions at a category level by sliding the relevant cookie category toggle to 'Off', then clicking the 'Save cookie preferences' button at the bottom of the pop-up. This will automatically delete and block all cookies within that category until you expressly change your mind by turning them back on in the cookie controller pop-up.

Please note that this will delete and block all cookies related to the category, which could impact your experience or web performance. A full list of cookies within each category can be found in the 'Falmouth cookies' section of this page.

It's possible to block cookies at an individual cookie level instead of at a category level by managing cookies through your browser. Details of how to do this can be found in the 'Managing cookies through your web browser' section of this page.

Exceptions

Necessary and specified 3rd party cookies can only be blocked by managing cookies through your browser. Details of how you can do this can be found in the 'Managing cookies through your web browser' section of this page.

Managing cookies through your browser

As an alternative to our cookie controller pop-up, you can independently manage your cookie preferences at a website or individual cookie level directly through your web browser.

You can accept, clear and block cookies by updating your web browser's cookie settings. Independent instructions on how to do this across a number of different web browsers can be found at: https://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies*.

*This is not part of our website and the University is not responsible for its content.

Changing your settings

You can change your cookie settings at any time, either by updating your saved preferences in the cookie controller pop-up or by changing the cookie settings directly in your web browser.

Using cookie controller to change your settings

To change your settings: block, delete, accept or allow cookies at a category level, on our website, simply locate the settings icon on the bottom left-hand side of any Falmouth website page and click it to open the cookie controller pop-up.

Once the pop-up is open either click the 'Accept all cookies' button to allow all cookies, which you might want to do to enable an optimum user experience, or click the cookie category toggle buttons to 'On' or 'Off' accordingly, should you want to allow some types of cookies but not others.

Don't forget to click the 'Save cookie preferences' button at the bottom of the pop-up to update your preferences.

Changing your web browser cookie settings

You can also change your cookie settings directly through your web browser.

Full details of how you can do this across web browsers can be found at: https://www.aboutcookies.org.uk/managing-cookies*.
*This is not part of our website and the University is not responsible for its content.

Contact us

If you have any questions about how to manage your cookies while using Falmouth's site then you can contact our Information Governance Office using the details on our Data Privacy page.

Terms of use & disclaimer

You can read our full terms of use for the falmouth.ac.uk website on our Terms of Use page.