Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
We use cookies to collect and store information about how you use the HM Coastguard website.
Cookies are used to:
- measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
- remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again
Cookies on hmcoastguard.uk are not used to identify you personally.
Use of cookies on this website
The table below explains the cookies we use and why.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose |
| Cookie preference |
CookieControl |
This cookie is used to remember a user’s choice about cookies on hmcoastguard.uk. Where users have previously indicated a preference, that user’s preference will be stored in this cookie. |
|
Language selection |
language |
This cookie is used to remember any selection a user has made about language on hmcoastguard.uk, using the language selector, so that the site will be shown in their chosen language when returning to the site. |
|
Universal Analytics (Google) |
_ga |
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the website. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone, including the number of visitors to the website and blog, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited. |
| YouTube cookies |
PREF* |
We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode. PREF - * Expires after eight months |
| Vimeo cookies |
player |
We embed videos from our official Vimeo channel. When you press play Vimeo will drop third party cookies to enable the the video to play and to collect analytics data such as how long a viewer has watched the video. These cookies do not track individuals. |
| Elfsight |
__cfduid |
We embed social feeds on some pages using a service called Elfsight. These cookies guarantee service security and protects from malicious visitors, prevent hyped up views and are used to identify widget ownership. These cookies do not collect or store any personal information. |
Change your settings
You can change your cookie preferences on hmcoastguard.uk at any time by clicking on the ‘C’ icon. You can then adjust the available sliders to ‘On’ or ‘Off’, then clicking ‘Save and close’. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect.
Alternatively, most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings.
To find out more about cookies, visit the Information Commissioner's Office - Cookies page.
Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:
To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Cookies on websites we link to
Other websites and services we link to may set additional cookies and, if so, will have their own cookie policy. This includes other government services and social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.
Last updated: 4 April 2023