This policy only covers the information collected through our website, for full details of how we manage any personal information you give us, please look at our privacy policy.
Cookies
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your computer, mobile phone, or other devices when you visit a website or use an app. The cookie will help the website or app provider to recognise your device the next time you visit their website or use their app. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.
There are other similar technologies such as pixel tags, web bugs, web storage and other similar files and technologies that can also do the same thing as cookies. We use the term "cookies" in this policy to refer to cookies and all such similar technologies that collect information in this way.
How do we use cookies?
We use cookies to help deliver certain functionality for the website or to help us understand how the website or any advertising we use is performing. When you first visit our sites you will be asked to accept cookies. Should you choose to do so, this is then remembered for future visits.
Managing cookies
Most web browsers allow you to manage your cookie preferences. You can set your browser to refuse cookies, or delete certain cookies. Generally, you should also be able to manage similar technologies in the same way that you manage cookies – using your browser's preferences.
Find out how to adjust the browser cookie settings for some of the most commonly used browsers.
- Please note that if you choose to block cookies, this may impair or prevent due to functioning of the Website.
Strictly necessary cookies: these are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website such as our shop or e-learning hub for volunteers, using a shopping cart
- Analytical/performance cookies: these cookies provide information such as through Google Analytics and enable us to analyse and evaluate the use of our website. We use these reports to help us decide on how best to develop our website to improve user experience.
- Functionality cookies: these are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region)
- Targeting cookies: These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited, and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them below:
Online shop
Our shop website has been built and hosted through Partridges, who also fulfill all our orders. Find out about the cookies used on our shop.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a simple, easy-to-use tool that helps website owners measure how users interact with website content. As a user navigates between web pages, Google Analytics provides website owners JavaScript tags (libraries) to record information about the page a user has seen, for example, the URL of the page. The Google Analytics JavaScript libraries use HTTP Cookies to "remember" what a user has done on previous pages/interactions with the website.
We use Google Analytics to analyse how our website is accessed, used, or is performing. We use this information to maintain, operate, and continually improve the website.
The cookies we use for Google Analytics are:
- _ga - expires after two years - Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website
- _gid - expires after 1 day – Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website
- _gat - expires after 1 day - Used to throttle request rate
Hotjar
Similar to Google Analytics, Hotjar is a tool which helps you understand how users interact with your website. We use Hotjar on our website to provide on-page surveys on our ‘Parents’ section to ask for user feedback. We also use the heatmap functionality to help us improve our understanding of user behaviour on certain pages and use this to inform how we can improve our website pages.
For more information, see Hotjar's privacy policy and the cookies set by the Hotjar tracking code.
Google Adwords
We use AdWords to enable us to reach our audiences more effectively when they search online for us or something related to what we do. In order to target people appropriately that have visited our site before and to track the performance of our advertising campaigns, we use Google AdWords remarketing tags doubleclick.net.
You can find out more about Google Ad settings and update your preferences https://adssettings.google.com/
Bliss e-learning hub
Our e-learning hub is used by Bliss volunteers and is provided through Moodle software. This uses cookies to enable users to log in to their account. In order to use the site, users must have cookies enabled.
The cookies used by Moodle are:
- MoodleSession – This cookie is essential and enables your login to continue throughout your session. When you log out of Moodle the cookie is destroyed (on the browser and the server)
- MOODLEID – This cookie is for convenience and remembers your user name the next time you return to login. It is safe to refuse this cookie but you will need to re-type your username on each login.
If you are a Bliss volunteer you can find out more about these cookies on the Moodle login page and also the Moodle Cookies Policy https://moodle.com/cookies-policy/
Sunshine Funds
Our fundraising platform Sunshine Funds (https://sunshine.bliss.org.uk/) enables families to set up tribute funds and donate to Bliss. To create a fund, you need to create an account on the site. The site uses cookies as below:
- __RequestVerificationToken – This cookie is essential to support your login throughout the session. When you end your session the cookie expires.
- ASP.NET_SessionId - This cookie is essential to support your login throughout the session. When you end your session the cookie expires.
The only other cookies on this site are from third-party applications such as Google Analytics or YouTube.
Baby Charter
Our Baby Charter platform (https://babycharter.bliss.org....) is a practical framework for neonatal units to self-assess the quality of family-centered care they deliver against a set of seven core principles. It enables units to audit their practices and develop meaningful plans to achieve changes that benefit babies and their families. The site uses the cookies below:
- _ga - expires after two years - Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website
- _gid - expires after 1 day – Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website
- _gat - expires after 1 day - Used to throttle request rate
Our donate platform
If you make a donation on our site this is provided through a company called Committed Giving who hosts our donate platform https://donate.bliss.org.uk. The site uses a cookie as below:
- ASP.NET_SessionId – This cookie is essential and passes data between screens as you progress through the process to make an online donation or set up a monthly donation. The cookie expires as soon as you end your session.
The only other cookies set on our donate site are from third-party applications, such as Google Analytics and Facebook (see relevant sections for more info on these cookies).
We use Facebook paid advertising to help us reach our audiences and increase awareness of our work. These include cookies to help us understand the effectiveness of our advertising and to ensure that we target people appropriately.
We use the Facebook pixel across our main website (www.bliss.org.uk), our shop (shop.bliss.org.uk), our donate platform (donate.bliss.org.uk), on Engaging Networks for any campaigning you may take part in, and on the Primo events platform which we use to sell tickets for our event, Little Lights.
The Facebook cookies used on our site include:
- fr – expires after 3 months - Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third party advertisers
- fbp – expires after 3 months - Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third-party advertisers.
- tr – expires after a session – Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real-time bidding from third party advertisers
You can find out more about Facebook privacy and cookie policy https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
You can also view your Facebook advert settings for your own Facebook account and update your preferences at any time https://en-gb.facebook.com/help/568137493302217?helpref=faq_content
Third-party cookies
If you visit a web page on our site with embedded content such as a video on YouTube or social media, you may be sent cookies from these sites. We do not control these cookies so for more information on these, please refer to the sites’ own cookie policies and how to manage them.