Website tracking and Cookies
Our websites use cookies and other digital tracking technologies to help them work well and to find out how people are using them. For the purposes of our Privacy Policy, the term ‘Cookies’ covers all types of tracking technologies including, but not limited to Cookies, Spotlight Tags and Web Beacons, each of which is described below.
Cookie: a small text file that is placed on your computer or mobile device when you access our websites. This allows the website to recognise your device and store information about your preferences and actions.
Spotlight tag: records access to a website as part of online advertising. Spotlight tags allow us to track, measure and report on activities that happen on our website after you see or click on an ad. These tags allow us to measure the effectiveness of our online marketing campaigns. These files are provided to us by our Ad Partners and organisations such as DoubleClick. For more information about DoubleClick please visit doubleclick.net.
Web beacon: an invisible graphic that is placed on a website or in an email and used to monitor the behaviour of the user visiting the website or sending the email. When you open an HTML email that we have sent you, this graphic is downloaded from a web server and generates a record showing that the email was opened, how many times it was forwarded (if any) and which links within the email were clicked. Access the Mailchimp website to find out more information.
Website tracking
For all areas of our websites which collect personal information, we follow best practice for web and data security. Although we cannot 100% guarantee the security of any information you give us, we enforce strict procedures and security features to protect your information and prevent unauthorised access.
Our websites contain links to other websites belonging to third parties and we sometimes choose to participate in social networking sites including but not limited to YouTube, Facebook, X (formally Twitter) and Instagram. We may also include content from sites such as these on our website, but we don’t have control of the privacy practices of these other sites. You should make sure that when you leave our site you have read and understood that site’s privacy policy in addition to our own.
We use cookies to help track the success of our online advertising and monitor how people use our websites, to monitor the success of different email communications and for our web analytics. We also gather information such as pages most visited, the events or activities of most interest and products borrowed and purchased, to help improve our website and activities.
Where you donate from an advert on a website, the personal information you input is tracked and collected by a third party (Donorfy), before it is passed on to the charity.
Wherever possible, we will keep this information anonymous so that it will not identify you as an individual visitor to our websites.
Cookies
The Charity uses different types of Cookies to accomplish the tracking described above and these are summarised below. Please look at the Cookie Preference Centre below to find out more about what these cookies do, and which may be in use on your device
Essential Cookies
These are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site may not work properly if you do. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and can help us identify issues with the website. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous.
Functional Cookies
These enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages.
Social Media Cookies
These are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests.
Targeting Cookies
These may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They do not store directly personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device.
During November and December 2024, while our Christmas appeal was live, our charity appeal webpage used cookies to facilitate advertising via retargeting. Data collected by AdMaxim from this page include IP addresses, probabilistic identifiers and other browsing and interaction data and can be retained for up to 90 days. We do not process or store personally identifiable information (“PII”) that directly identifies an individual. PII is information which can be used to identify a specific individual directly, and typically consists of information such as name, address, email address or telephone number. If you choose to send us your PII, for example by emailing us, we will only use this information for the purposes of responding to the matter in your enquiry. More information can be found on Admaxim’s website.
All but essential cookies require your consent to be placed on your device, and you will be asked if you would like to consent the first time you visit our website, and every 12 months thereafter through our cookie banner. You can change your preference at any time by clicking the button (below the browser information) to go to the Cookie Preference Centre.
You can disable Essential Cookies using your browser settings. Details of how to do this are listed in the browser cookie settings below.
Pixel-based retargeting
We use the Meta Pixel cookies on our website to help us understand how users engage with our content and to measure the effectiveness of our advertising
The pixel is a piece of code that helps identify Facebook and Instagram users and see how they interact with the content on our website and Meta platforms. When you leave our web pages, the cookie notifies “retargeting” platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) to present you with adverts about our work and how you might be able to support the charity. While the Pixel itself doesn’t actively track what a user does on other websites or pages (that don’t have a pixel embedded) once they leave the original site, it can access certain data from the user’s browser like their recent browsing history through the cookie. Therefore, when a user navigates away from our website, some information is still available to Meta, depending on the cookie settings and user consent.
You can switch off this functionality by changing your browser settings. More information can be found in our browser cookie settings below. We also use ‘Lookalike’ and ‘Custom’ audiences to target people with similar characteristics, preferences, and online behaviour to our supporters.
The processing of this data by Meta takes place within the framework of Meta’s data policy. Special information and details about the Meta pixel, the Conversions API and its functionality can also be found in the Meta help area. This useful guide also explains more about the Meta pixel.
Understanding the Meta Pixel: a simplified guideCNWL NHS Health Charity’s website operates separately from CNWL NHS Foundation Trust’s main website. While the charity’s website uses tracking pixels, the Trust’s website does not. This means that if you navigate between the charity and Trust website, tracking pixels should not follow or continue monitoring your activity across both sites. Each website maintains its own privacy practices.
Browser cookie settings
If you would like to prevent cookies from being set by our website, the following links will help:
To find out more about cookies, please visit allaboutcookies.org