We want to make services we deliver on the internet easy, and our content richer and relevant. This sometimes involves placing cookies on your computer or mobile device.

Cookies are simple pieces of data stored on your hard drive. They are safe as they cannot be used to spread viruses. Cookies we use cannot be used to identify you personally as no personal information such as telephone numbers or email addresses is in these cookies.

Cookies used on our website

  • Operational cookies
  • CookieControl - used to determine cookie control options
  • wires - used to store the session id of a user. This determines whether a user is logged in to our website. Session data is also stored when a user is filling in a form, but the data is stored on the server and not in the cookie

These cookies are necessary for our site to operate and do not contain personal data. We consider these cookies necessary to provide a service to the user.

Usage and analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics to collect statistical data about our visitors. We collect this information in a way that does not identify, your ip address is anonymised and the data is not shared with anybody else.

  • __utmc Records moment in time when a visitor leaves a site and expires after 30 minutes
  • __utmb Records moment in time when a visitor enters a site and expires at the end of the session
  • __utmz Keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked on and what keyword was used
  • __utma Keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site related to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred

Information on how to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites and Google's use of cookies can be found on Google Analytics Opt-out and Google privacy pages.

Third party cookies

The Council website contains types of third-party cookies:

  • Embedded content and social media

Cookies placed on your computer or mobile device from a third party are not related to shetland.gov.uk. The Council does not control how a third party uses their cookies. Please check third party websites' privacy policies.

Embedded content and social media cookies

Our site has a number of pages with embedded videos or other content that utilise cookies from a third party to enable this.

You could also delete cookies from your device and change cookies setting in your chosen browser: How to delete cookies.