Cookie policy for Govia Thameslink Railway Limited (trading as “Gatwick Express”, “Great Northern”, “Southern Railway”, “Thameslink” / “we” / “us” / “our”)
1. What are Cookies?
Cookies are little data files that are placed onto the hardware device which you use to browse the internet (e.g. your Computer, Smartphone or Tablet, your “device”) by websites that you visit. Cookies contain information about your visits to that website and the purpose of cookies is to enable our websites to remember you, and your browsing habits, when you visit it again in the future.
2. How do we use Cookies?
Cookies perform many different functions, from remembering that you are logged in during visits to what user preferences you may have selected. They also help us to identify which of our web pages are the most popular and what type of journey a visitor has through our site.
Cookies help us plan the content and layout of our site and recognise returning visitors that have been to our site before. They therefore play an important role in helping us to enhance the usability and performance of our site to improve your visits.
In order to help us understand how many visitors we have, which pages are visited, and to help us develop future improvements to our site, reporting and analysis is carried out using Google Analytics who will place cookies on your device. If you have an account and log on from different devices, we may use cookies to analyse which devices are preferred. For more information on Google cookies we recommend you visit the Google website which outlines Google’s privacy policy and how to opt-out of tracking.
In most cases we will need your consent in order to use cookies on this website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with a service you have requested (eg to enable you to put items in your shopping basket and use our check-out process).
We provide a notice when you first visit the website, advising we use cookies. You are able to consent or refuse cookies by clicking accept on this notice. You can change your cookie consent preferences at any time by clicking on the Cookie Preferences link in the footer of our website.
We use cookies and other online tracking devices such as pixel trackers (web beacons), HTML Local Storage and Local Stored Objects (Flash Cookies) on this website to:
- keep track of the items stored in your shopping basket and take you through the checkout process;
- recognise you whenever you visit this website (this speeds up your access to the website as you do not have to log in each time);
- obtain information about your preferences, online movements and use of the internet;
- carry out research and statistical analysis to help improve our content, products and services and to help us better understand our visitor and customer requirements and interests;
- target our marketing and advertising campaigns more effectively by providing interest-based advertisements that are personalised to your interests; (we use third party tracking cookies to do this) and
- make your online experience more efficient and enjoyable.
3. What Cookies are used by this Site?
We do not use cookies to collect information that could identify you by name, (during your visit to our site [unless you create an account or log in to purchase a ticket from us.) but we can distinguish different users. The table below sets out the cookies we use and is updated with current cookies:
Types of cookie that may be used during your visit to our website are:
- Session cookies
- Session and permanent cookies
- Anonymous permanent cookies
- Cookie to individually identify users who have logged in
- Third party cookies
- First party cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.