Transparency
Cookies and local storage
This site stores two things, both of them records of a choice you made. Each key is listed below with its purpose and lifetime, and each can be cleared from this page.
The short version
There are no advertising cookies, no analytics cookies, no tracking pixels, no fingerprinting and no third-party storage of any kind. Nothing on this site is loaded from another domain — no external fonts, no embedded frames, no social widgets, no content delivery network for scripts — so no other party is in a position to set storage while you read.
What remains is strictly functional: a record that you have acknowledged the entry notice, and a record of your cookie preference. Without them, both the notice and the banner would reappear on every page, which would be worse for you and no better for your privacy.
Every key in use
| Key | Type | Purpose | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| open_data_desk_notice_accepted | Local storage | Records that the entry notice was acknowledged | Until site data is cleared |
| open_data_desk_notice_accepted | First-party cookie | Same record, as a fallback where local storage is unavailable | 12 months |
| open_data_desk_cookie_choice | Local storage | Records whether essential-only or analytics-allowed was chosen | Until site data is cleared |
Why a cookie banner at all
Storage that is strictly necessary to provide a function the reader has asked for does not require consent under the applicable rules, and the two keys above arguably fall within that description. The banner exists nonetheless for two reasons: it makes the position visible rather than asking readers to take it on trust, and it records a preference in advance so that the position remains transparent if an analytics tool were ever introduced.
Choosing to allow analytics does not currently cause anything to load, because no analytics tool is installed. It records a preference only. If that ever changes, the change would be described on this page and in the data protection notice before any tool was added, and the recorded preference would be honoured.
Consent Mode signals
Each page sets a consent state before any other script runs. Advertising storage, advertising user data and advertising personalisation are denied and stay denied permanently — there is no path on this site that grants them. Analytics storage begins denied and would flip to granted only on an explicit choice. Functionality and security storage are granted, covering your stored preferences and the basic security of the connection.
The state is applied with a short initialisation delay so that nothing could act before the signals are in place. Because no advertising or analytics tag exists here, these signals currently have no consumer; they are set so that the site's default position is explicit and verifiable in the page source rather than merely asserted in a policy.
How to verify all of this yourself
Nothing in this notice has to be taken on trust, and checking it takes about a minute in any current browser. The storage inspector in the developer tools, usually under a heading such as Application or Storage, lists the cookies and local-storage entries held for a domain: for this site it will show at most the keys in the table above, and only after you have interacted with the notice or the banner. The network panel, with the page reloaded, lists every request the page makes; each one will be to this domain, because there is no external font, frame, script or image to fetch.
The consent state can be read directly in the page source, near the top of the head element and before anything else. It is a few lines of plain text setting each signal, which is why it is described here as verifiable rather than merely promised. If what you observe differs from what this page describes, that is a defect worth reporting through the contact page.
Server logs are a different thing
Storage on your device and records on a server are often conflated, and they are separate. The keys above sit in your browser and can be deleted by you. Delivering any page also requires a request to a server, and hosting infrastructure records such requests for security and operational reasons: an address, a timestamp, the file requested and a response code. That record is not a cookie, is not created by anything on this page, and cannot be removed by clearing site data.
It is also not used for analysis of readers. The data protection notice describes it in full, including the legal basis, the role of the hosting provider as a processor and the short retention period, and that notice is the place to look for anything concerning personal data rather than device storage.
Where each control acts
| Control | What it removes | Effect on this site |
|---|---|---|
| Reset button on this page | The cookie-preference key only | The banner appears again; the entry notice does not |
| Cookie settings in the footer | Nothing; it reopens the banner | You can record a different preference |
| Clearing site data in the browser | Both keys, cookie and local storage | Notice and banner both appear on the next visit |
| Blocking cookies for this domain | Prevents the fallback cookie being set | Pages work; the notice may reappear each visit |
| Private or incognito window | Everything, when the window closes | Each new session starts from the notice |
| Disabling JavaScript | Nothing stored, nothing set | No notice, no banner, no calculator result; all text remains |
Withdrawing or changing a choice
Checklist
- Use the reset control on this page to clear the stored cookie preference.
- Use the cookie settings button in the footer of any page to see the banner again.
- Clear site data in your browser to remove both keys, including the entry-notice record.
- Block cookies for this domain in your browser settings; the pages will still work.
- Use private browsing, in which case nothing persists after the window closes.
If storage is blocked
The site is designed to function with storage refused or unavailable. Every page renders, every link works and the calculators operate normally, because they run entirely in your browser and depend on nothing that is stored. The only consequence is that the entry notice and the cookie banner will appear again on each visit, since the record of your earlier choice is exactly what has been removed.
Reading is possible without JavaScript as well. The notice and banner will not appear, the section navigation on long pages falls back to ordinary anchor links, and the calculators simply do not display a result, since arithmetic in the browser is what they are.
Changes to this page
This page is reviewed at least annually and whenever the site's technical arrangements change. If a key were added, removed or altered in purpose or duration, the table above would be updated before the change took effect and the review date at the foot of the page would advance.
Questions about anything listed here can be sent through the contact page. This is a description of the site's technical practice and is general information rather than legal advice.
This control removes the key that records your cookie choice from this browser.