Cookies
Cookies and Analytics
When you visit our website (nts.org.uk), with your consent, we use cookies to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns, through the use of analytics. We do this to understand the number of visitors to our website and the popularity of different pages. The information is processed in a way that does not directly identify anyone.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded on to your computer when you visit a website. Cookies enable us to recognise your device and see how you use our website. This helps us to ensure the security and performance of our website as well as determine what is popular and deliver the most appropriate content for you.
To comply with data protection and electronic marketing laws, we must tell you when we use cookies on our website, tell you what they are and how they work, and in most cases, seek your consent to use these cookies. Consent is not required where the cookies are necessary for:
- carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network; or
- the provision of an ‘information society service (e.g. a service over the internet) requested by the subscriber or user.
This means we do not need consent for:
- cookies used to remember the goods a user wishes to buy when they add them to their online basket or proceed to the checkout on our website;
- session cookies providing security that is essential to comply with data protection security requirements for an online service the user has requested – e.g. online payments processing; or
- load-balancing cookies that ensure the content of the page loads quickly and effectively by distributing the workload across several computers.
We use a cookies tool on our website which asks users to opt in for cookies that are not considered necessary (please refer to the tables below for further information). This tool enables you to accept marketing and/or analytics cookies, or neither, and save your preferences; or you can accept the recommended settings. In accepting recommended settings, this will switch all marketing and analytics cookies on and close the cookie controller. You can change your settings at any time by visiting this page.
Our purposes for processing this information is to ensure that content from our website is presented in the most effective way for you and your device; to enable you to participate in interactive features on our website; to maintain and monitor the performance of our website; and to continually look to improve our website and your website experience. Our lawful basis for this processing is either your consent or our legitimate interests (for cookies that are deemed necessary).
Third party cookies
We sometimes embed content from social media and other third-party websites into our website. As a result, when you visit a page containing such content, you may be presented with cookies from these websites and these third-party cookies may track your use of our website. We do not control these cookies, so we would recommend that you check the relevant third party's website for more information.
Who will have access to your data and who will we share it with?
The National Trust for Scotland may work with other companies that use cookies to collect information regarding your interaction with our website. This information may be used to serve you National Trust for Scotland advertisements that may be of interest to you when you visit other websites. For example, on Facebook.
We also work with an affiliates marketing company for the purposes of recording, validating and reporting on successful transactions after clicking on a Trust advertisement on another website. We have a contract in place to govern the lawful handling of this data. Please refer to the AWIN Privacy Policy for further information.
Our website is hosted by a third party. They will have access to your information for the purposes of managing your interaction with the website and investigating any difficulties with using the website. We have a contract in place to govern the lawful handling of this data. Please refer to the Whitespace Privacy Policy for further information.
Further information about the use of third party cookies and the sharing of cookie data with third parties can be found in the tables below.
What cookies do we use?
We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We'd also like to set optional marketing and analytics cookies to personalise your visit to the website and help us improve it. We won't set optional cookies unless you enable them or accept our recommended settings.
Necessary cookies
Necessary cookies enable core functionality on our website. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
Table 1: Necessary cookies
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| SimpleSAMLAuthToken | To enable efficient interaction with the website. It tracks the current session ID and assists with session-fixation protection for My Trust by identifying if user has already authorised or otherwise. | Session |
| SimpleSAMLSessionID | To enable efficient interaction with the website. It tracks the current session ID and assists with session-fixation protection for My Trust by creating an ID associated with the user session. | Session |
| CraftSessionId | To enable efficient interaction with the website. It is used to recognise the same user within a session as they navigate the site. | Session |
| CRAFT_CSRF_TOKEN | To improve security of the site by helping to prevent any cross-site request forgery i.e. malicious exploitation of website by users. | Session |
| PHPSESSID | To enable efficient interaction with the website. On the website it is used to establish a user session and to pass state data via a temporary cookie. | Session |
Table 2: Necessary cookies (Third Party)
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| ApplicationGatewayAffinity | To improve website performance and route traffic to the website. It is set by Microsoft as it runs on the Windows Azure cloud platform. | Session |
Marketing cookies
We use marketing cookies to personalise your visit to our website and show you tailored advertising based on your likes and interests. For example, showing you places to visit and events in your location.
Table 3: Marketing cookies
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| _aw_m_15472 | To monitor successful conversions from other websites to nts.org.uk using Affiliate Window. | 1 year |
Table 4: Marketing cookies (Third Party)
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| _fbp | Contains a subdomain index, timestamp and random number. Used to identify browsers for the purchases of advertising andsite analytics. It is set by Facebook. | 3 months |
| anj | To enable targeted advertising through the App Nexus platform. Anonymous data is collected on advert views, IP address (for location), page views & hardware/software type. It is set by AppNexus. | 3 months |
| fr | Contains a User ID, Browser ID and timestamp plus other miscellaneous data. Used to deliver, measure and improve the relevancy of ads. It is set by Facebook. | 3 months |
| _gcl ANID IDE DSID FLC AID TAID exchange_uid | These cookies are used to improve the relevance of ads shown to users. They are set by Google. | 2 years |
| SRT ServerPool TASession
| To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. These cookies are also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. They are set by Tripadvisor. | Session |
| PMC
| To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 2 years |
| TACds
| To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 2 months |
| TART | To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 4 days |
| TATravelInfo
| To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 13 days |
Analytics cookies
We use analytics cookies to monitor visitor behaviour patterns and improve our website performance. For example, if we are running an advertisement on a third party website, analytics cookies will help us to understand if this advertising has been successful in redirecting users to our website.
Table 5: Analytics cookies
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| _ga | To calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the website analytics reports. It uses a unique ID for users. The activity tracked for analytical reports includes pageviews, ecommerce (memberships, donations and online shop transactions), downloads, use of search functionality or when a user selects specific links on the website. | 2 years |
| _gid | To generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website by registering a unique ID. The activity tracked for analytical reports includes pageviews, ecommerce (memberships, donations and online shop transactions), downloads, use of search functionality or when a user selects specific links on the website. | 2 days |
| _gat | To throttle request rate and limit requests to Google Analytics. | 1 minute |
Table 6: Analytics cookies (Third party)
| Name | Purpose | Duration |
| _dc_gtm_ | To improve website performance and limit data collection on high traffic websites. It is set by Google. | 1 minute |
| __adal_ca | To attribute the name of the campaign that drove a user to the website by using the traffic source and campaign data. It is set by Adalyser. | 6 months |
| __adal_cw | To set the conversion window and allows visitor conversions to be ascociated to previous website visits via a visit timestamp. It is set by Adalyser. | 7 days |
| __adal_id | To generate a unique id to identify user devices. It is set by Adalyser. | 2 years |
| __adal_ses | To track user sessions and conversions so that they can be attributed accordingly to TV advertising campaigns. It is set by Adalyser. | 1 day |
| GPS | To enable tracking based on geographical GPS location by registering a unique ID on mobile devices. It is set by YouTube. | 1 day |
| PREF
| To help Google keep statistics of how the visitor uses YouTube videos across different websites by registering a unique ID. It is set by YouTube. | 8 months |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | To estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. It is set by YouTube. | 179 days |
| YSC
| To keep statistics of which videos from YouTube the user has seen by registering a unique ID. It is set by YouTube. | Session |
| TASSK
| To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 179 days |
| TAUD | To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 13 days |
| TAUnique | To allow the visitor to view embedded content from Tripadvisor, such as advertisements. This cookie is also used by the website to determine if visitor's click on the advertisements. It is set by Tripadvisor. | 2 years |
How will we protect your data?
Unfortunately, the transmission of information over the internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. We cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us over the internet. Transmitting information over the internet is done at your own risk and you should bear this in mind when using our site, products and services online. To protect key account and financial information you provide us with online, we use a security measure known as Secure Server Layer (SSL). When you submit financial information to our site it is encrypted to provide protection.
Changing cookie preferences
You can update your cookie preferences on our website at any time, by visiting this page.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, you can use the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on
You can use your web browser to:
- delete all cookies;
- block all cookies;
- allow all cookies;
- block ‘third-party’ cookies (i.e., cookies set by online services other than the one you are visiting);
- clear all cookies when you close the browser;
- open a ‘private browsing’ / ‘incognito’ session, which allows you to browse the web without recording your browsing history or storing local data such as cookies (you should however be aware of the limitations of this feature in a privacy context); and
- install add-ons and plugins that extend browser functionality.
You can find information about controlling cookies across different browsers below:
Microsoft Edge cookies information
Internet Explorer cookies information
Safari cookies information – mobile devices and desktops
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