This document describes how we use cookies and other online technologies such as pixels or tags on our websites. It applies to anyone who visits our websites or apps, and should be read along with our Privacy Policy, Data Privacy Notice and website Terms and Conditions.
When we use the words we, our and us here, we mean Bank of Ireland UK or Bank of Ireland Mortgages (as the case may be) and Bank of Ireland Group plc. The word cookie in this document can also refer to other technologies that collect information when you use our website or apps.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of information, placed on your device by us when you visit a website or use an app belonging to us. Some of these cookies can be recognised by websites when you visit them. This can help keep track of your preferences, and also helps us keep our website and apps secure.
Pixels are small, invisible pieces of code that work like a cookie, but instead of storing information in a browser, they deliver information to a server. Tags allow website operators to track, report, and analyse a website using a series of codes.
Later in this document we include information on how you can manage cookies.
How do we use them?
The cookies we use (see the table further on in this document) help to give you a better banking experience in different ways, including:
Improving the way our services work
Adding to the security of our websites and apps, for example when you’re logged in to our digital banking services
Showing advertising which you may find useful and which may be relevant for you
Enabling live chat for when you want to talk to us online
Where you interact with any of our careers websites, we use cookies to:
Show jobs and relevant career content (and optimising that content based on how visitors interact with the website).
Record your contact and notification preferences and to understand how and when visitors use our websites (including when they apply for jobs with us) which helps us streamline our online recruitment processes.
How long do the cookies last?
Type of cookie
Details
Session
Stored in your device’s memory only while your browser is open. Our cookies tables indicate if a cookie is a session cookie.
Persistent
Remain stored until a specific expiry date or until you delete them. Our cookies tables tell you the duration of these cookies. See the section “How can you manage cookies” for information on how to delete cookies.
Who provides the cookie?
Type of cookie
Details
First party
Placed by us on your device and used only by us. Our cookies tables have details of Bank of Ireland UK cookies.
Third party
Cookies owned by other organisations (such as our advertising partners) used on our websites and apps. Our cookies tables have details of the third party cookies we use.
What categories of cookies do we use?
The cookies we use fall into four categories: necessary, functional, performance and advertising. Click on the relevant category to find out more and see a list of cookies.
These allow you to move around and access secure areas of our websites and apps. Without them, we cannot provide the online services you may want. You do not need to give us consent for necessary cookies to be used – they will be set automatically if you use our website or apps.
Name of Cookie/Description
Category
Hostname
Cookie provider
Duration
Cookie: PHPSESSID Description: General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written in JSP. Usually used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server.
Cookie: CONSENT Description: This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website. This determines the CONSENT given by a user and determines loaded content.
Strictly Necessary
youtube.com
YouTube
729 Days
Cookie: OptanonConsent Description: This cookie is set by the cookie compliance solution from OneTrust. It stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. This enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the users browser, when consent is not given. The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor.
Cookie: OptanonAlertBoxClosed Description: This cookie is set by websites using certain versions of the cookie law compliance solution from OneTrust. It is set after visitors have seen a cookie information notice and in some cases only when they actively close the notice down. It enables the website not to show the message more than once to a user. The cookie has a one year lifespan and contains no personal information.
These allow our websites to remember choices that you have made on previous visits. This could include things like your preferred language, or changes you’ve made to the size of the text on a specific page. They can keep track of your progress when you’re completing online application forms. Functional cookies can also be used to provide services you’ve asked for, like watching a video or using live chat on our website.
Name of Cookie/Description
Category
Hostname
Cookie provider
Duration
Cookie: vuid Description: Vimeo vuid cookie helps play videos and collects analytics data such as how long a viewer has warched the video. They do not track individuals.
Performance cookies collect information about how you use our websites. They tell us which pages you go to most often, and whether you get error messages from web pages.
Name of Cookie/Description
Category
Hostname
Cookie provider
Duration
Cookie: AMCV_D7ECF561577691407 F000101%40AdobeOrg Description: This is the organisation ID for the identity service within Adobe Experience Cloud, it is used to identify site visitors.
Cookie: _ga Description: This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners.
Cookie: _gat_UA-101047685-1 Description: This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.
Cookie: _gid Description: This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited.
Cookie: JSESSIONID Description: This domain is controlled by New Relic, which provides a platform for monitoring the performance of web and mobile applications.
Advertising cookies (also called targeting cookies) help us shape our advertising and make it more relevant to you. We and our third party advertising partners use these cookies to understand what you’re interested in on our website, and to identify what other sites may have directed you to us. If you do not allow these cookies, you may experience less targeted advertising.
Our advertising partners can also use these cookies to understand your interests and show you relevant adverts on other websites across the internet, based on the products and services that you have shown an interest in on our websites. These cookies will mean that you may see advertising for our products and services on other websites as a result of the advertising cookies that may be placed on your device.
Name of Cookie/Description
Category
Hostname
Cookie Provider
Duration
Cookie: Datr Description: The purpose of this cookie is to identify the web browser being used to connect to Facebook.
Targeted
.facebook.com
Facebook
3 months
Cookie: Fr Description: Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers
Targeted
.facebook.com
Facebook
3 months
Cookie: presence Description: Used to contain the user’s chat state.
3 Months, but it can be session based if “remember me” is not checked
Cookie: IDE Description: DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to serve targeted advertisements that are relevant to visitors. They help measure conversion rates of ads.
Targeted
doubleclick.net
DoubleClick
389 Days
Cookie: test_cookie Description: This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to determine if the website visitor’s browser supports cookies.
Targeted
doubleclick.net
DoubleClick
0 Days
Cookie: YSC Description: Some cookies are used to enhance a users experience during a browsing session, this remembers a users input and associate user’s actions.
Targeted
youtube.com
YouTube
Session
How can you manage cookies?
When you visit our websites or use our apps, you can choose to allow all cookies, or manage them through your cookie settings. You have the option of selecting the categories of cookies (apart from necessary ones) that you want to allow.
You can update your cookie preferences using the link below:
Changing your browser settings
You can also change the settings on your web browser to accept or reject all, or certain types of cookies. You will still be able to use most of our websites with no loss of functionality if cookies are disabled from the web browser. However, if you reject necessary cookies you may not be able to use or access certain banking service on your device.
Information on how to manage and disable cookies can generally be found in the privacy or help section of your browser’s website. If you want to disable cookies on other devices or browsers, you will need to disable the cookies on each device and on each browser separately.
Find out how to manage and disable cookies on popular browsers:
If more than one person uses your device or if you share an IP address, the choices set by other people for a browser will apply to you as well, unless you change them. For example, if you share a computer with your family, you may see advertisements based on sites other family members have visited.
Cookies that are already on your device
Turning off cookies will not get rid of any that have been downloaded in the past. To get rid of them, you must delete them from your browser.
Changes to this policy
We may change this policy from time to time as we need to. If we make any changes, they will be included in this document.
Using your personal information
You can find information on how we collect and use your personal information in our Data Privacy Notice, which can be found here.
Questions, comments, requests or complaints? Please get in touch with our Data Protection Officer