Cookie policy
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files placed on your browser or computer by the website that you’ve visited. We place cookies on our website for a number of purposes.
Some cookies are considered to be personal data because they may attach a unique ID to you. However, we don’t use these cookies or unique IDs to directly identify you.
You can find out more information about cookies by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org
Pixels, tags and other similar technologies
Pixels, tags and similar technologies are sometimes used alongside cookies on our site. These are used for similar purposes to cookies, for example to track activity on our website and to target advertising on third party websites. In this policy, when we use the term ‘cookies’ this includes pixels, tags and other similar technologies.
Cookie Rules
When we use cookies, we must comply with the relevant legislation. The use of cookies is governed by:
- The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 when cookies contain personal data; and
- The Privacy and Electronic (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR).
When cookies contain or collect personal data, we must also follow the rules in the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. Among other things, we need to have a lawful basis for processing cookies containing your personal data, the lawful basis that we rely on is:
- Consent for cookies that are not strictly necessary; and
- Legitimate interest for cookies that are strictly necessary. Our legitimate interest is the maintenance and running of our website. These cookies are necessary and essential to enable us to run our website.
Giving you information about the cookies we set
When we set cookies, we must provide you with clear and comprehensive information about them, such as the information included in this cookie policy. You can also contact us if you would like further information about our cookies by contacting us.
Consent
Some cookies require your consent to be set, and others can be set without your consent.
The types of cookies we set without your consent include:
- Strictly necessary or essential cookies
- Low risk analytics cookies (such as when they provide aggregated data or aren’t used to track individuals)
The types of cookies we will ask your consent to set include:
- Analytics cookies (where they are used for wider purposes such as specific tracking)
- Targeting, Advertising and Marketing cookies
When you first visit our website, a cookie banner will appear to ask for permission to set cookies.
Withdrawing consent
Yes. We think it’s really important to give you control over your personal data and to enable you to make informed decisions. You can change your cookie preferences by clicking the teal icon on the bottom left of the webpage. From here, you can ‘reject all’ cookies or manually toggle both Analytical and Marketing cookies to off. This does not affect the collection of strictly necessary cookies.
Please note, we do not use consent for the setting of strictly necessary cookies. Removing these may mean that the website will not function correctly.
Changing browser settings
You can control the setting of cookies through your browser settings. You can find a detailed guide about how to do this for the most common web and smart phone browsers here.
We will not infer your consent to cookies based on your browser settings alone. For example, we will not set cookies because you have allowed cookies on your browser. We will always obtain your consent directly from you. However, having strict browser settings may mean that cookies that you have consented to on our website may be blocked by your browser.
Understanding why and how we use cookies
Cookies have a range of uses and functions on our website. Some of these cookies help our website to function properly, while others are in place to personalise your experience.
Cookies help to:
- Compile statistics on how our website is being used to enable us to make improvements;
- Maintain confidentiality and security on online forms and password protected areas of our website;
- Help you navigate through the website;
- Ensure the website is operating effectively;
- Personalise and improve the service we offer by understanding preferences;
- Assessing which areas of the website are most relevant to you;
- Measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns; and
- Target advertising and marketing for third parties.
The below section outlines the types of cookies that we set by category, some cookies may be used for more than one purpose and are categorised based on their primary function. The types of cookies that we have on our website are:
First and third-party cookies
First-party cookies
First-party cookies are set by us when you visit our website. They usually are strictly necessary cookies or analytics cookies that help us understand how our website is used through tools like Google Analytics.
Some examples of first party cookies that we set include:
Third party cookies
Third-party cookies are set by other online services. This may include advertising partners and social media providers, or third-party platforms that we use to enter events or to provide additional information. Most of the processing is conducted by these third parties, and we will generally ask your consent to set them, unless they are for essential, functional or analytics and of low risk.
How long are cookies stored
Session cookies
These allow websites to link the actions you take during a browser session. They may be used for a variety of purposes, such as remembering what you’ve put in your shopping basket as you browse around a site. They could also be used for security when you’re accessing internet banking or to facilitate the use of webmail. These cookies expire after a browser session so would not be stored longer term.
Persistent cookies
Persistent cookies are stored on your device in between browser sessions. This allows your preferences or actions across the site (or across different websites) to be remembered. These cookies are set for a specified amount of time and are removed once they have ‘expired’.
Cookies we use
Strictly necessary cookies (essential)
Strictly necessary, or essential cookies are necessary to either make our website function correctly or for providing services you’ve requested. These cookies may have the following functions:
- To ‘remember’ any goods that you have added to your shopping basket
- To help with security on our website
- To help ensure that content is loaded correctly, quickly or effectively on our website.
Although we’ll set these cookies without obtaining consent, because they’re necessary, we’ll provide you with information about them.
Some examples of strictly necessary cookies that we set include:
| Cookie Name | Provider | Purpose | First or Third Party | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cf_clearance | Cloudflare | To distinguish between humans and bots to maintain security and functionality | Third | Up to 1 year |
| cookie_preference | Us | Stores users consent for cookies | First | 6–12 months |
| keep_alive | Us | Maintains user session and ensures functionality | First | Session |
| Localization | Us | Stores user language preferences | First | Session |
Targeting, advertising or marketing cookies
These cookies are used to tailor specific advertisements to you based on your browsing behaviour, such as remembering or tracking when you’ve visited a particular website.
This could mean that some adverts are shown to you more often, or less often. We don’t have any advertising on our website, so these cookies are usually set by third parties. This means that although the cookies are placed by us, the information will be sent to and processed by these third parties. We’ll use some of these cookies to monitor the effectiveness of our marketing.
Removing these cookies does not mean that you won’t see any advertising from us on other websites. It just won’t be as a result of information obtained by these cookies.
Some examples of targeting, advertising and marketing cookies we set are:
| Cookie Name | Provider | Purpose | First or Third Party | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NID | Store user preferences and personalises ads | Third | 6 months | |
| YSC | YouTube (Google) | Tracks user interaction with embedded videos on our website | Third | Session |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | YouTube (Google) | Measures bandwidth and user preferences | Third | 6 months |
| PREF | YouTube (Google) | Stores user preferences for video playback | Third | 8 months |
| MUID | Microsoft | Identifies unique users for advertising across Microsoft | Third | 1 year |
| MR | Microsoft | Measures ad performance | Third | 7 days |
| SM | Microsoft | Tracks session for advertising analytics | Third | Session |
| ANONCHK | Microsoft | Checks whether MUID is anonymised | Third | 10 minutes |
| _fbp | Meta (Facebook) | Tracks visitors and ad targeting | Third | 3 months |
| fr | Meta (Facebook) | Ad targeting | Third | 3 months |
| _ttp | TikTok | Tracks behaviour and ad targeting | Third | 3 months |
| _muc_ads | X (Twitter) | Tracks engagement and ad targeting | Third | 2 years |
| bcookie | Ad targeting and analytics | Third | 2 years |
Analytics cookies
These cookies track your behaviour on our website to improve your experience. We compile data and statistics about how you’ve used our website to understand what works or how users interact with our site, enabling us to make improvements.
Some examples of analytics cookies we set are:
| Cookie Name | Provider | Purpose | First or Third Party | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Distinguishes users for analytics | First | 2 years | |
| _ga_* | Maintains session state for analytics | First | 2 years | |
| _utm* | Tracks campaign sources and user journeys | First | Session | |
| dmSessionID | DotDigital | Tracks and identifies a visitor as a specific Dotdigital contact, enabling the website to display personalized content and track activity from email campaigns. | First | Session |
| _clck | Microsoft | Persists user ID for Microsoft Clarity analytics | First | 1 year |
| _clsk | Microsoft | Groups page views for session analytics | First | 1 day |
If you wish to see a full list of Cookies and similar technologies that are set on our website, please contact us via the contact information in this Policy.
Further information
When cookies contain personal data, the data protection legislation applies. Under the data protection legislation, you have rights that you can exercise in relation to your personal data. You can find further information on these rights and our data protection standards in our privacy policy.
Contacting us
If you’d like further information relating to your data protection rights, how we process your personal data, any other data protection or matter related to this cookie policy, or would like to make a rights request, please contact us:
By email: Contact our Data Protection Team at dataprotection@younglivesvscancer.org.uk
By phone: 0117 314 8635
By writing to us:
Data Protection Team
Young Lives vs Cancer
4th Floor, Whitefriars
Lewins Mead
Bristol
BS1 2NT
The Information Commissioner (ICO)
The ICO website has information and guidance on data protection, information rights and privacy. You can visit their website at www.ico.org.uk .
You have a right to make a complaint to the ICO if you feel that we have not processed your personal data in line with data protection requirements, or if you feel that we have not upheld your information rights.
You can contact the ICO:
By email: icocasework@ico.org.uk
By phone: 0303 1231113
By writing to them:
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
You can find contact details for the ICO on their contact page.
Changes to this Cookie Policy
We reserve the right to update this cookie policy at any time, and we’ll provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of personal information.
Date: April 2026 – v4.0
Next Review: April 2028
Owners: Head of Digital
Head of Information Governance
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