What are cookies?
In common with many other websites DoctorLink uses cookies, these are text files that are placed on your computer to collect information that is used to enhance the DoctorLink experience.
Cookies come in a variety of flavours depending on their purpose:
-
- Session cookies: allow users to be recognised within a website so any page changes or item or data selection you do is remembered from page to page. The most common example of this functionality is the shopping cart. These cookies expire when the browser is closed.
- Permanent or persistent cookies: help websites remember your information and settings when you visit them in the future. These remain in operation, even when you have closed the browser. They remember your login details and password so you don’t have to type them in every time you use the site.
- Third-party cookies: these are installed by third parties with the aim of collecting certain information to carry out research into browsing behaviour.
What does DoctorLink use cookies for?
We use cookies as described below:
Name:
browser.timezone
Type:
Persistent
(1 year lifespan, refreshed at each request)
Purpose:
Used by DoctorLink to record what time zone you are in.
Name:
_Doctorlink_session
Type:
Session
(deleted when your browsing session ends)
Purpose:
Used when you are logged in to prevent you from having to log in every single time you visit a new page it includes:
- The ID of the last practice page that was visited;
- The path to redirect a user to after a registration, this is prompted by an attempt to book anappointment;
- Whether you requested any details on a question or answer during a symptom assessment.
Name:
remember_me
Type:
Persistent
(20 year lifespan)
Purpose:
Defines the lifetime of the remember_token cookie. Its value will be 20 years from now if you signed in with the “remember me” option checked, or until the user signs out.
Name:
remember_token
Type:
Persistent
(see above – has a 20 years lifespan or 30 minutes depending on if remember me option has been selected)
Purpose:
Identifies the user’s authentication session. The expiration date will renew itself if the user performs any action in the application.
Name:
symptom_assessments
Type:
Persistent
(48 hour lifespan)
Purpose:
An encrypted cookie that is used to store the ID of the symptom assessments performed by a guest user. Used to associate those assessments with the new user account after a registration.
Name:
_ga
Type:
Third Party (Google Analytics)
Purpose:
Helps us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience.
Third Party Cookies
This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit to help us improve future visits to our site.
The main cookie used by Google Analytics is the _ga cookie.
For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page and Analytics
cookies and privacy information.
Social media buttons and/or plugins are used on this site to allow you to connect with your social network in various ways. For these to work social media sites including; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, will set cookies through the site which may be used to enhance your profile on their site or contribute to the data they hold for various purposes outlined in their respective privacy policies.
Disabling Cookies
You can set your browser not to accept cookies (see your browser help function for how to do this). You can also delete cookies, instructions on how to do this can be found here: https://www.aboutcookies.org/how-to- delete-cookies/
Please note some of our website features may not work if you disable cookies, it is therefore recommended that you do not disable cookies.
More Information
If you need any further information on how we manage cookies please contact us at [email protected].