Cookie Policy

Version last updated: 13/07/23

The BPE Solicitors LLP website (the ‘Site’) uses cookies to distinguish different users of our Site. This assists in providing you and other users with a positive experience when browsing the Site and allows for improvements to be made.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies enhance your experience, for example allowing the Site to “remember” your past actions or preferences over time which means that you do not need to keep re-entering them whenever you revisit the Site from another website.

This means that the following information is automatically collected when you visit the Site:

• The internet domain name and IP address from where you access the Site;
• The type of browser software and operating system used to access the Site;
• The date and time of access to the Site
• If you link to the Site from another website, the address of that website; and
• The pages you enter, visit and exit the Site from.

Please visit our Privacy Policy to see the full details of the information that we may collect from you and the purposes for which any personal information is used if at all.

How to delete cookies

Users of the Site can set their devices to manage cookies to see what cookies are set, block or accept certain cookies, accept all cookies, notify when a cookie is issued or not to receive any cookies. If you wish to restrict or block cookies this can be done through the browser settings. The “Help” function within your browser will assist you with this further.

You may wish to visit https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/ which contains comprehensive information on how to control cookies on a wide range of browsers. Further information can also be found on how to delete cookies and on cookies generally.

Please note that restricting cookies may result in users not being able to take full advantage of all of the features or services available on the Site, and certain parts of the Site may not be accessible.

What cookies does the Site use?

The cookies used on this Site have been categorised based on the broad categories found in the ICO UK Cookie Guide. This Site uses the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies: these are required for the operation of the Site and cannot be switched off in our systems. They include, for example cookies enabling the logging into secure areas of the Site.
• Analytical or performance cookies: these are required for the recognition of Site visitors and for counting the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the Site when using it. This assists in improving the way the Site works, such as ensuring that users can easily find what they are looking for.  
• Functionality cookies: these are used to recognise when users return to our Site. This enables the personalisation of content such as remembering user’s names and choice of language.
• Targeting cookies: these are cookies which record the user’s visit to the Site, the pages users have visited, and the links users have followed. This information will be used to make the Site more relevant.

You can find further information about the individual cookies used on our Site and the purposes for which they are used in the table below:

Cookie Title	Purpose
GRECAPTCHA	Description: Google Recaptcha service sets this cookie to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks. Duration: 5 months 27 days
ASP.NET_SessionId	Description: Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit. Duration: session
_ga_*	Description: Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views. Duration: 1 year 1 month 4 days
_ga	Description: Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors. Duration: 1 year 1 month 4 days
_hjSessionUser_*	Description: Hotjar sets this cookie to ensure data from subsequent visits to the same site is attributed to the same user ID, which persists in the Hotjar User ID, which is unique to that site. Duration: 1 year
_hjFirstSeen	Description: Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores the true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. Duration: 30 minutes
_hjIncludedInSessionSample_2667635	Description: Set to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by your BPE’s daily session limit. Duration: 2 minutes
_hjSession_*	Description: Hotjar sets this cookie to ensure data from subsequent visits to the same site is attributed to the same user ID, which persists in the Hotjar User ID, which is unique to that site. Duration: 30 minutes
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress	Description: Hotjar sets this cookie to detect a user's first pageview session, which is a True/False flag set by the cookie. Duration: 30 minutes
_gid	Description: Google Analytics sets this cookie to store information on how visitors use a website while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the collected data includes the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. Duration: 1 day
_gat_UA-*	Description: Google Analytics sets this cookie for user behaviour tracking. Duration: 1 minute
_gat_gtag_UA_*	Description: Google Analytics sets this cookie to store a unique user ID. Duration: 1 minute
__RequestVerificationToken	Description: This cookie is set by web application built in ASP.NET MVC Technologies. This is an anti-forgery cookie used for preventing cross site request forgery attacks. Duration: session

This Site will also use Google Analytics cookies. Google Analytics is a third-party web analysis service provided by Google LLC, which utilises performance cookies and targeting cookies. Information generated by these cookies about user’s use of the Site (including the IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google LLC on servers in the United States. Google will use the information collected for the purpose of evaluating users use of the Site on our behalf, compiling reports on website activity, and providing other services relating to activity and internet usage to us. Google will not associate users IP addresses with any other data held by Google. Users may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate setting on their browser as highlighted above. Users can also prevent Google’s collection and use of data (cookies and IP address) by downloading and installing the relevant plug in to create an opt-out cookie preventing further processing of user’s data. For more information about Google Analytics cookies, please see Google’s help pages and privacy policy. If such cookies are prevented, we cannot guarantee how the Site will perform.

This site uses Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices. This includes a device's IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf.
For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.

Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after 1 year, 1 month and 4 days.

Contact Us

To request a copy of the cookie information we hold, exercise any information rights explained in this policy or have any concerns or complaints about our use of your cookie information, please contact bpe@bpe.co.uk.

If a complaint cannot be satisfactorily resolved, you may contact the ICO at www.ico.org.uk or by telephoning 0303 123 1113 if the complaint relates to the way we have handled your personal data.