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BBC Resources Privacy Policy

At BBC Resources we take our customers' security and privacy seriously. We are committed to protecting your personal information, and are registered under the Data Protection Act. We've set out our policy about the personal information you provide us with online under the following headings.

  1. Statement of Intent
  2. Information on Visitors
  3. About Cookies
  4. Submitting Personal Information
  5. Direct Marketing and User Survey
  6. Users under 18
  7. How do you find and control your cookie?
  8. How do you know which site uses Cookies?
  9. How to see your Cookie Code

1. Statement of Intent

From time to time, you may 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.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the BBC and its 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. The BBC 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 BBC Resources, 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 post production pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight post production information on a second visit.

DMD – Digital Marketing Direct, an independent measurement and research company, gathers non-personal data regarding the visitors to our site on our behalf using cookies and code which is embedded in the site. Both the cookies and the embedded code provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. BBC Resources uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help us improve our services to our users.

If you wish to reject Digital Marketing Direct's cookie, you can use the process set out below in point 7.

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3. What is a Cookie?

Cookies are text files that identify the computer used to our server - but not the individual user. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site, in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies only record which areas of the site 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, although this will mean that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

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4. Submitting Personal Information

When you supply any personal information to BBC Resources we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We have to collect the information fairly, and to let you know how we will use it and whether we will pass the information on to anyone else. 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 if you tell us that you no longer wish us to hold this information. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

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5. Direct Marketing and User Surveys

As BBC Resource's online services expand, there will be more opportunities to enhance the services provided to you. From time to time we may provide you with details of other BBC Resources services and products which may be of interest to you and offer you the opportunity to subscribe to them. We may also offer you the opportunity to participate in surveys carried out by BBC Resources or its agents, which help our research into the types of service we offer. We will keep a record of information provided by you. Please note that any information you provide to BBC Resources will only be used within BBC Resources, and will never be supplied to third parties without first obtaining your consent. The only time we may do so is if we are obliged by law to disclose information.

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6. Users under 18

If you are under 18, please make sure that you obtain your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the BBC Resources's website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

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7. How to find and control your Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0:

1. Choose Tools, 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 (accept cookies, disable cookies or prompt before accepting cookies) to regulate your use of cookies.

If you're using Netscape 6.0

On your task bar, click:
1. Edit, then
2. 2. Preferences
3. 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 on the Privacy Tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Click on the "Advanced" Button
6. Check the "override automatic cookie handling" box and select
7. 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 Tan
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 and 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, then
3. Click on Advanced
4. Set your options in the box labelled "Cookies".

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8. How do you know which sites you've visited use Cookies?

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the General tab, click
4. Settings, then
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, then
5. View Files.

Internet Explorer 3.0

On your Task Bar, click:
1. View, then
2. Options, then
3. Advanced, then
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.

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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.

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