Cookie Notice

What are cookies

Cookies are text files containing small amounts of information which are downloaded to your device, or more technically the browser on your device, when you visit a website or application. The browser that places cookies on your device can read the information on the cookie that it set and send it back to the website or application on your next visit. On your next visit the website or application can recognise you and remember information about your previous visits, such as any preferences you set.

When we refer to "cookies" we also mean technology that works in a similar way to cookies, including technology known as "pixels" and "local storage". Local storage is often used as an alternative to cookies on devices where you access our services via an application such as a smartphone, tablet or smart TV, rather than a web browser.

Cookies are typically classified as either "session cookies" which do not stay on your device after you close your browser or "persistent cookies" which will usually remain on your device until you delete them, or they expire.

You can find more information about cookies at: https://www.allaboutcookies.org/

How do we use cookies?

When you access the UKTV website at uktv.co.uk and any of our associated websites, applications or services including UKTV Play (the "UKTV Digital Services") on any of your devices, we use and allow some third parties to use cookies in a variety of ways, including to:

  • enable you to use the UKTV Digital Services;
  • understand your use of our UKTV Digital Services;
  • improve your user experience and enable personalised features and content;
  • optimise our advertisements and marketing; and
  • enable us or our advertising partners to assist us in serving ads specific to your interests.

We use cookies when you access the UKTV Digital Services via a range of platforms and devices, including the web uktvplay.co.uk, Android devices, iOS devices, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Roku, NowTV, Samsung Smart TVs, Freeview Play, Freesat and YouView. We use cookies to perform different functions which we explain below.

What types of cookies do we use?

1. Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to enable you to move around our websites and use their features. Without these cookies, we cannot provide you the services you have requested, such as access to UKTV Play. For example, strictly necessary cookies do things like store your device type, which allows UKTV to show you appropriate content based on that device type.

These cookies typically store information that does not directly identify you, such as your IP address and your UKTV unique ID. Your UKTV unique ID is a random sequence of numbers and letters which we can use to link information collected by cookies back to you, so that we can remember your preferences without collecting information that directly identifies you. Generally, we do not share these strictly necessary cookies or the information they collect with any third parties, although we may share your UKTV unique ID with entities that drop cookies on your device if you opt-out of certain cookies that are not strictly necessary, so that those third parties know not to place those cookies on your device.

2. Functionality cookies

These cookies allow us to remember choices you make on our websites and change the way our UKTV Digital Services behave or look in order to reflect those choices, or otherwise personalise your experience from information we infer from your behaviour on our UKTV Digital Services, or information we already know about you because you are a registered user. For example, functionality cookies do things like remembering video preferences such as volume control and use of subtitles or audio description (in each case where applicable), and remembering your place in a video so you can leave UKTV Play part way through an episode and return to it later. These cookies may be used to tailor the services you receive from us, or the content delivered to you on subsequent sessions on our UKTV Digital Services. We can personalise the information you see based on what we already know about you, so that you spend less time looking for things. So, instead of one digital service for all users, each user can have an experience which is unique to them. Even if you use more than one device or computer on a regular basis, we can link cookies together so you will still receive a personalised online experience across all your devices.

These cookies typically store information that does not directly identify you, such as your IP address and your UKTV unique ID. These functionality cookies and the information they collect will be shared with UKTV's suppliers who provide functionality services to UKTV so that you can use the functionality they provide.

3. Performance cookies

These cookies see how you use our UKTV Digital Services in order to enhance their performance and develop them according to the taste of our customers and visitors. For example, performance cookies do things like store data which will provide trends and usage patterns for business analysis, site/platform improvement and performance metrics. The type of information we collect includes how many visitors visit our UKTV Digital Services, how many customers log in, when they visited, for how long and which areas of our UKTV Digital Services they used. We will generally only use this data in aggregated form, to analyse how groups of users use our UKTV Digital Services. However, we may look at how an individual specifically uses the UKTV Digital Services if you report a technical problem to us, so that we can try to fix it. These cookies may also be used to test different designs and ensure that a consistent look and feel is maintained for users of our UKTV Digital Services, track errors and measure the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns. We use several different third providers to help provide us this performance data, including Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics and Sentry.

We also gather anonymous information about the programmes and adverts our viewers watch on the UKTV Digital Services. This information is aggregated and shared with Kantar Media, a research agency acting on behalf of the Broadcasters Audience Research Body (BARB). BARB is the UK's independent body which provides the TV industry with viewing data.

These cookies typically store information that does not directly identify you, such as your IP address so we can remember how you used our UKTV Digital Services. Cookies dropped by a third party (for example Google or Adobe) may also assign you a unique ID, which is a random sequence of numbers and letters which can be used to link information collected by cookies back to you, so that we (or the third party that drops the cookie) can remember how you used our UKTV Digital Services without collecting information that directly identifies you.

Some of the suppliers that issue performance cookies on our UKTV Digital Services provide a mechanism by which you can opt-out of those performance cookies through their system directly, and provide more information about the information that is collected in their privacy policies:

These cookies may track your browsing activity on other websites. We do not generally see or use data about your browsing history, although sometimes we may see which website you visited immediately before arriving at our UKTV Digital Services. Our performance cookies or the resulting analysis may be shared with our advertisers, advertising technology suppliers or data science agencies including Freewheel (a Comcast company) so that we can show you adverts that are relevant to you based on which of our programmes or channels you have previously watched. For example, if you have previously watched an episode of Top Gear on UKTV Play this information might be later used to later show you an advertisement for a car. You can read more about how we use that information to show you adverts in the "Advertising Cookies" section below.

4. Advertising cookies

We work with third-party advertising companies (including advertising technology suppliers and data science agencies) to serve you ads while you are using our UKTV Digital Services, and monitor the effectiveness of these advertising campaigns. The ads that are served to you might promote UKTV's programmes and services, or a third party's products and services. We permit these advertising companies to place and access their own cookies on your device in the course of serving ads on our UKTV Digital Services. These advertising companies may use information obtained through their cookie about your visits to our and other websites (such as performance information mentioned above) in combination with information about your purchases and interests from other online sites or from other reputable data sources and/or advertisers in order to provide advertising that is most relevant and useful to you. This is known as "interest-based advertising" or "targeted" advertising.

We allow our trusted data providers (such as reputable data sources, data science agencies and insights providers) to use cookies on UKTV Digital Services to help us deliver more effective interest-based advertising. These cookies may store de-identified demographic or other data linked to data you voluntarily have submitted to us, e.g., your email address, postcode or gender, that we may share with those data providers solely in hashed, non-human readable form. If you are a registered user, the information collected from you when registering for and using our UKTV Digital Services is not anonymous and we may use this information along with other information we know or infer about you (including your preferences) to tailor advertising to you.

We also place and allow third-party advertising companies to place cookies on our UKTV Digital Services to allow them to show you adverts for UKTV programmes and services when you visit third party websites and applications. These third-party advertising companies (including ad networks, ad-serving companies, and other service providers they may use) may assume that users who interact with or click on a personalised ad or content are part of the group that an ad or content is directed towards, and may use this assumption to show you further similar and relevant adverts in the future.

These advertising cookies do not store directly identifiable information (such as your name or email address) but do collect your IP address and assign you a unique ID so that they can remember you and the adverts that have been shown to you. The types of cookies used by these advertising companies and how they use the information generated by them will be governed by those companies' privacy/cookie policies. For more information on our interest-based advertising partners and on how to opt out of targeting advertising, please read the "How can you control your cookies?" section below.

Our use of social media and cookies

Like most companies, we use social media to promote UKTV products and services. The social media platforms we currently use include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok, but we may update that list from time to time. When you engage with our content on social media the relevant social media platform may place a cookie on your browser or device. These cookies may be used, amongst other things, to:

  • analyse how you engage with our content
  • identify whether you encounter a technical issue when engaging with our content
  • remember any preferences you have set regarding the look and feel of the platform
  • suggest further content you might enjoy which is similar to content you have previously engaged with

How the information stored in those cookies will be used and how you can manage those cookies will be governed by each platform's cookie and/or privacy policy.

How can you control your cookies?

How can you manage your cookies at a device or browser level?

In order to place cookies on your browser, we require your consent which we will obtain via your browser when you first visit one of our UKTV Digital Services. If you don't want to allow cookies, you can refer to your browser settings. The most popular browsers (e.g. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari) allow you to:

  • see what cookies you've got and delete them individually
  • accept or block either all cookies or cookies from particular sites
  • notify you when a cookie is issued
  • delete all cookies when you close your browser.

These browser settings will also only apply on the device on which you change them. If you want to control the cookies placed on your browser across all of your devices, you will need to separately change your browser settings on each device. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences. Be aware that if you choose not to receive cookies at any time, our UKTV Digital Services may not function properly and certain services will not be provided. Please note that, unless you have adjusted your browser settings (as set out above) to block or limit cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon as you visit our UKTV Digital Services via a browser.

When you access our UKTV Digital Services on your device via an application (rather than a browser) we may use cookies to store information on your device, for example about how you use our UKTV Digital Services on that device. It is not currently possible for you to opt out of or remove these cookies from your device without deleting the application.

How can you manage your advertising cookies?

If you wish to opt out from receiving third party cookies for targeting advertising, listed below are the main third party advertising technology networks used on our UKTV Digital Services to serve you targeted ads, along with a link to their privacy policy and the part of their website that allows you to opt out. Please note that if you opt out from receiving targeted advertising, this does not mean that you will receive less advertising when you use our UKTV Digital Services or other services. This just means that the advertising you see may not be as relevant to you.

Please note that the above is not an exhaustive list and is updated by us from time to time. Alternatively, if you'd like to opt out of third party cookies relating to targeted advertising please go to www.youronlinechoices.eu

Contact Details

You may contact us as follows: Email: viewers@uktv.co.uk Post: UKTV, PO BOX 6996, Cardiff, CF15 5DS Phone: 020 3192 0504

We are UKTV Media Limited, a company registered in England and Wales under number 04266373 and our registered address is 10 Hammersmith Grove, London, W6 7AP.

Last updated 07 September 2020