Visitor information
Information we collect from visitors
We collect several kinds of information from visitors to the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform website depending on the part of the site being visited: feedback, email enquiries, email addresses, site usage information and, in a few cases, personal details such as your name and postal details if you order publications from Reports and Publications.
1. Feedback
If you provide feedback on the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform web site through our Contact form at we will only use this information to develop and improve the site.
2. Comments and questions
If you send an enquiry by email to a specific contact on the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform web site it may not always be possible for the Department to provide the information requested directly. In such circumstances we may pass your enquiry to another government department so that they can fulfill your information request.
3. Email alert services sign up
If you sign up to receive email alerts we will use the information you give us to provide the service(s) you have requested. We may occasionally contact email alert subscribers to help us evaluate and improve the service that we offer.
If you have used an on-line form on the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform web site to sign up for an email alert service, you can correct, update or remove any personally identifiable information directly, via our Contact form.
If you sign up for a subscription email service, we will hold the information you have provided for as long as you require access to the service requested. If you inform us that you wish to cancel a subscription we will remove you from our mailing list and your details will be deleted from our records.
4. Site usage information
i) Cookies
Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session. Cookies do not contain any personal information about you and cannot be used to identify an individual user. If you choose not to accept the cookie, this will not affect your access to the majority of facilities available on our web site.
Although your browser may be set up to allow the creation of cookies, you can specify that you be prompted before a site puts a cookie on your hard disk, so that you can decide whether to allow or disallow the cookie. Alternatively, you can set your computer not to accept any cookie.
Nedstat, an independent measurement and research company, gathers non-personal data regarding the visitors to our site on our behalf using cookies and code which is embedded in the site. Both the cookies and the embedded code provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. The DTI uses this type of information, as with that obtained from any other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the service to its users. Further information is contained in Nedstat's privacy statement.
ii) Log files
Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. The Department puts together log file information from all our visitors, which we use to make improvements to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it. Log files do not contain any personal information about you.