What we store on your device, and why.

Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Cookies are widely used by website owners in order to make their websites work, or to work more efficiently, as well as to provide reporting information.

Cookies set by the website owner — in this case, Afghan Zafaran Consortium — are called "first-party cookies". Cookies set by parties other than the website owner are called "third-party cookies". Third-party cookies enable third-party features or functionality to be provided on or through the website, such as advertising, interactive content and analytics. The parties that set these third-party cookies can recognize your computer both when it visits the website in question and when it visits certain other websites.

We use first- and third-party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical reasons in order for our website to operate, and we refer to these as "essential" or "strictly necessary" cookies. Other cookies enable us to understand the interests of our users in order to improve the experience of the site. Third parties may serve cookies through our website for analytics and other purposes. This is described in more detail below.

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies. You can exercise your cookie rights by setting your preferences in the Cookie Consent Manager. The Cookie Consent Manager allows you to select which categories of cookies you accept or reject. Essential cookies cannot be rejected, as they are strictly necessary to provide you with the service.

The Cookie Consent Manager can be reached from the notification banner shown on your first visit, and from the Cookie settings link in the footer of every page at any time afterwards. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use our website, though your access to some functionality and areas of our website may be restricted. You may also set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies.

The types of first- and third-party cookies that may be served through our website, and the purposes they perform, are set out below. Please note that the specific cookies served may vary depending on the pages you visit.

Essential website cookies

Strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features, such as access to secure areas and the record of your cookie choice. These cannot be switched off.

Performance and functionality cookies

Used to enhance the performance and functionality of our website, but non-essential to its use. Without them, certain functionality — embedded video, for instance — may become unavailable.

Analytics and customisation cookies

Collect information used either in aggregate form, to help us understand how our website is being used and how effective our campaigns are, or to help us customise our website for you.

Advertising cookies

Used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions such as preventing the same advertisement from continuously reappearing, ensuring that advertisements are properly displayed, and in some cases selecting advertisements based on your interests.

Social networking cookies

Used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on our website through third-party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes.

Unclassified cookies

Cookies that have not yet been categorised. We are in the process of classifying these with the help of their providers.

As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser to browser, you should visit your browser's help menu for more information. Instructions for managing cookies are published by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Opera and Internet Explorer.

In addition, most advertising networks offer a way to opt out of targeted advertising. The Digital Advertising Alliance, the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance each publish an opt-out tool.

Web beacons

Cookies are not the only way to recognize or track visitors to a website. We may use other, similar technologies from time to time, such as web beacons — sometimes called "tracking pixels" or "clear gifs". These are tiny graphics files containing a unique identifier that enables us to recognize when someone has visited our website or opened an email containing them. This allows us, for example, to monitor the traffic patterns of users from one page within a website to another, to deliver or communicate with cookies, to understand whether you have come to the website from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to improve site performance, and to measure the success of email marketing campaigns. In many instances these technologies rely on cookies to function properly, so declining cookies will impair their functioning.

Flash cookies and Local Shared Objects

Websites may also use so-called "Flash cookies" — also known as Local Shared Objects, or "LSOs" — to, among other things, collect and store information about your use of our services, for fraud prevention and for other site operations. If you do not want Flash cookies stored on your computer, you can adjust the settings of your Flash player to block Flash cookie storage using the tools contained in the Website Storage Settings Panel. Please note that restricting or limiting the acceptance of Flash cookies may reduce or impede the functionality of some Flash applications.

Targeted advertising

Third parties may serve cookies on your computer or mobile device to serve advertising through our website. These companies may use information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide relevant advertisements about goods and services that you may be interested in. They may also employ technology used to measure the effectiveness of advertisements. The information collected through this process does not enable us or them to identify your name, contact details or other details that directly identify you, unless you choose to provide these.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to the cookies we use, or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons. The date at the head of this document is the date it was last revised. Please revisit it from time to time to stay informed about our use of cookies and related technologies.

If you have any questions about our use of cookies or other technologies, please email us at contact@afghanzafaranconsortium.com.