Cookies policy

Notification of change of policy

We reserve the right to amend this privacy statement. You are advised to visit this website section periodically in order to keep up to date with the changes in our privacy policy.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer. They allow information about your visit to be recorded, and enable websites to recognise a user anonymously based on the information stored in the cookie.

Cookies can either be 'session' based, where they are deleted after each visit (and are generally used in order for the site to operate), or 'persistent', where the cookies last for a longer, defined period.

You can find out more about cookies by referring to this document from the International Chambers of Commerce, which outlines the law and the different types of cookies used.

Consent

By using our website, our social media pages (such as Facebook), subscribing to our services, donating to us and/or shopping online you agree that we can place the types of cookies set out below on your device and use your data in accordance with this policy.

In order to remember that you have accepted our use of cookies, we will place a temporary cookie on your device to remember your consent for three months.

Types of cookies

There are two broad types of cookies – 'first party cookies' and 'third party cookies':

• First party cookies are cookies that are served directly by the website operator to your computer, and are often used to recognise your computer when it revisits that site and to remember your preferences as you browse the site.
• Third party cookies are served by a service provider on behalf of the website operator, and can be used by the service provider to recognise your computer when you visit other websites. Third party cookies are most commonly used for website analytics or advertising purposes.

In addition, cookies may be either 'session cookies' or 'persistent cookies'. Your computer automatically removes session cookies once you close your browser. Persistent cookies will survive on your computer until an expiry date specified in the cookie itself, is reached. We use both types of cookies to store your preferences and provide relevant content.

Categories of cookies we use

1. Strictly necessary cookies: These cookies are essential for the user to move around the website and to use its features, e.g. donations.
2. Performance cookies: These cookies collect information about how the user makes use of the site, e.g. which pages the user visits most. These cookies do not collect information that identifies the user.
3. Functionality cookies: These cookies remember choices made by the user and enhance the features, e.g. language or user’s location. This cookie is also used to remember a user's preferences for a font size, or customisable parts of a web page.
4. Targeting or advertising cookies: These cookies collect information about the users' browsing habits. This may also include your use of social media sites, e.g. Facebook, or how you interact with our website, which is then used to show you relevant content elsewhere on the internet. These may also be used to remarket to you. N.B. Google’s remarketing services include multi-device targeting if users are logged into their Google account.

Find out more in the ICC Cookie Guide. The majority of our cookies fall into the first two categories. However, we also use cookies on our webpages that are in categories three and four.

What information do we collect?

We may collect some, or all, of this information when you visit our website, depending on how you use it. We monitor how people use our website so we can improve it. If you visit our website, we may record information about this including (but not limited to):

• the areas of the website you visit
• the amount of time you spend on the site
• whether you are new to the site or have visited it before
• how you came to our website – for example, through an email link
• the type of device and browser you use
• how you use the website and the quality of your experience – for example, we may record a session or test different variations of a webpage to see how easy it is for you to find what you are looking for so we can improve the service

We use cookies to track how donors come to our site. For example, we use codes in our URLs to show us where a donation has come from, which gives us insight into the effectiveness of our marketing materials. Some of this will be used by third party cookies to target you with relevant advertising (see below).

Although not through cookies, we do measure the success of the emails we send – so we know what subject lines and stories people liked the most. 

Website statistics analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics. This provides information about your use of the website and is stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. We are working to join this data to our data warehouse in order to get a better understanding of how website behaviour is related to the full supporter experience.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. For more details please read Google’s Analytics overview.

You can always opt-out of Google Analytics cookies by using Google’s opt-out tool.

Third party cookies

Some cookies are not related to the WaterAid website. Some of our pages contain embedded content such as a YouTube video, Twitter feed, Facebook likes or a Google Plus share, and you may receive cookies delivered from these websites. We do not govern the publication of third party cookies. To understand more about their cookies and privacy statements, please visit the relevant sites.

Some of our cookies will remind you about our work and how you can help after you have left the website. These are the targeting/advertising cookies we use. It is a useful tool for us to retain public awareness of our campaigns and how they can be supported.

If you do not want cookies to be stored on your PC it is possible to disable this function without affecting your navigation around the site.

Changing your cookie preferences

The 'Help' menu in the toolbar of most web browsers will tell you how to change your browser's cookie settings, including how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, and how to disable cookies altogether.