Data Protection

Using your personal information

This brochure gives an overview of how we use personal information.

Identity theft

Your identity is a valuable commodity but you may not be the only person using your own personal details. Your identity can be stolen and used in a variety of ways. This is commonly known as identity theft (or identity fraud) and is the fastest growing type of fraud in the UK.

The following website offers advice on how to protect you and your business from the risk.
www.identityfraud.org.uk (opens new window)

Cookies

A cookie is a small piece of information that a website places on your computer's hard drive. Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors.

Nielsen NetRatings, 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. Bank of Scotland uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

If you wish to reject Nielsen NetRatings's code, you can use the process set out below under "How to find and control your cookies". To disable the embedded code, you will need to send requests directly to privacy@netratings.com. Further information regarding Nielsen NetRatings's privacy statement can be found at www.nielsen-netratings.com (opens new window)

Our cookies cannot be read by any other website other than that which placed them. We use them to store your preferences for certain types of information to track your progress through the website or to prevent the same pop-up screens from appearing more than once when you access our site. You will be advised what information will be collected, the purpose for collecting the information and the method of collection by third parties on their website. Browser settings can be adjusted to prevent cookies being placed on your PC if desired; though this may affect the performance of certain areas of the site. Cookies may also be removed on an individual basis from your computer.

How to find and control your cookies

If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then
2. Preferences
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click on Privacy Tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Click on the 'Advanced' button
6. Check the 'override automatic cookie handling' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:

1. Choose Tools, then
2. Internet Options
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Custom Level
5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

How to see your cookie code

Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.