A new law, which will come into force on 25 May 2011, will require UK businesses and other organisations including FE and HE institutions to obtain consent from visitors to their websites in order to store on and retrieve usage information from users’ computers. The provisions will give people more choice and control over what information organisations can store on and access from their own computer. Because cookies are so widely used it is accepted that it will take time for meaningful solutions to be developed, evaluated and rolled out and it is not expected that the ICO will take enforcement action in the short term against organisations as they work out how to address their use of cookies. The exact steps that have to be gone through to comply with the law and gain consent from users are being drawn up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Further details on the ICO website at - http://www.ico.gov.uk/.