About Cookies 

Cookies are small text files that can be used by web sites, like www.rya.org.uk to make a user's experience more efficient and to help you access our site faster and more efficiently.

When you visit a site that uses cookies for the 1st time, one is downloaded onto your PC. When you next visit the site, your PC then checks to see if it has a cookie from that website and sends the information from the cookie to the website, the website then ’knows’ that you have been there before. 

When created, cookies normally don't contain any personal information. They don't scan your computer or do any kind of investigation to find out your personal information. Any personal information they might contain is a result of your own input on a website's form. When a cookie does store personal information, this information is coded in such a way that it is unreadable to any third party who happens to access your cookie folder. The only computer that can read and decode the information is the server that created the cookie in the first place.

In addition to encrypting any information stored in cookies, some websites add extra layers of security to browsers' cookie handling processes: store only anonymous but unique content on local cookies; or store personal information on the website's server and make it accessible only by matching with it the anonymous cookie stored on your computer.