Cookies and local storage

The short version

• Reading the site, browsing the warnings archive and using the firm checker require no cookies at all.
• We set no advertising cookies and run no cross-site tracking or fingerprinting.
• We embed no advertising scripts, no social pixels and no third-party analytics tags.
• The few things stored are either strictly necessary or preferences you chose yourself.

What we set

For an ordinary reader, nothing. No cookie is written when you land on the front page, read a report, search the Warning List archive or run a check in the firm checker.

Strictly necessary cookies

• Newsroom sign-in. Members of the newsroom signing in to the editorial system have a session stored in their browser. It is required for the sign-in to work, and it is not used for analytics or profiling.
• Reader account sign-in. If you create an account to comment, a session is stored so you stay signed in. Signing out removes it.

Strictly necessary storage of this kind does not require consent under the UK regulations, because without it the service you asked for cannot work.

Local storage, not cookies

A few preferences are kept in your browser's local storage rather than in a cookie, which means they are never transmitted to us with a request:

• Text size. The reading-size control in the header remembers your choice between visits.
• Follows. Firms and topics you follow without an account are held on your device only.
• Dismissed notices. So a notice you have closed does not reappear on every page.

Clearing your browser storage clears all of it, and nothing is lost that we hold a copy of.

Why there is no cookie banner

Consent banners exist because sites want to set non-essential trackers. We do not set any, so there is nothing to ask you to consent to. If that ever changes, a banner will appear before the tracking does — not after it — and this page will say what changed and when.

Third-party content and links

Links to the FCA, Companies House, Action Fraud and the Financial Ombudsman Service open those organisations' own websites, where their own cookie policies apply. We are not affiliated with them.

Two third-party resources are loaded by the site itself: a web font service that supplies the typefaces, and an icon cache used to display a firm's logo. The icon cache is used deliberately so that your browser never contacts a website the FCA has warned about. Neither sets an advertising cookie for us, and neither receives anything about what you searched for.

How to see and clear what is stored

Every major browser lets you inspect and delete cookies and local storage for a single site, usually under Settings then Privacy. Blocking storage for this site will not stop you reading anything; it will only mean your text-size choice and your follows are forgotten, and that you cannot stay signed in.

Do Not Track and privacy tools

We honour Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control by default, in the simplest possible way: there is no tracking to switch off. Privacy extensions, strict blocking modes and VPNs do not degrade the site — if you find a feature that breaks under one, that is a bug and we would like to hear about it.

Changes to this page

The date at the top reflects the current version. What we hold about you more broadly, and for how long, is set out in the privacy notice.