In this policy statement whenever we use the words ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ this refers to Operation Smile UK (OSUK). OSUK is an international medical volunteer-based charity registered with the Charities Commission in England and Wales registration number 1091316 and is also a charitable company limited by guarantee, registered with Companies House, registration number 04317039.

This policy covers information collected through our website, microsites, and social media. This information may be similar to that collected as listed on our – see our privacy policy to learn about how we manage your personal data/information.

The rules on cookies are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and sits alongside Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. It gives people specific privacy rights in relation to electronic communications.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small file containing a string of characters that is sent to your computer, smart phone, tablet and other electronic devices when you visit a website. A cookie helps us recognise you when you visit our site or digital properties again. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. You can configure your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies. A cookie cannot read data off your computer hard disk, nor can it read cookie files created by other websites.

What category of cookies are there?

Strictly Necessary Cookies – These cookies are essential for you to browse the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the site for example the donation form to make a financial transaction. These only last until you close your browser.

Functional Cookies – Also known as “functionality cookies,” these cookies allow a website to remember choices you have made in the past, like what language you prefer etc. This cookie cannot track your online activity to other websites.

Social Media Cookies – These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we may 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. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies, you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

Performance or Analytical Cookies – Also known as “performance cookies,” these cookies collect information about how you use a website, like which pages you visited, and which links you clicked on. None of this information can be used to identify you. It is all aggregated and, therefore, anonymised. Their sole purpose is to improve website functions. This includes cookies from third-party analytics services if the cookies are for the exclusive use of the owner of the website visited.

Targeting or Advertising Cookies – These cookies track your online activity to help us deliver more relevant advertising or to limit how many times you see an advert. They are linked to services provided by third parties, such as Facebook and other social media sites. The third party provides these services in return for recognising that you have visited our website.

Session Cookies – also called Non-Persistent Cookies or Temporary Cookies, are stored in memory and never written to the disk. Session cookies remain active as long as the browser remains active – once the browser is closed, the cookies vanish.

Persistent Cookies – are stored on a user’s device to help remember information, settings, preferences, or sign-on credentials that a user has previously saved. This helps create a convenient and faster website experience. These cookies have an expiration date issued to it by the webserver. Basically, this type of cookie is saved on your computer so when you close it and start it up again, the cookie is still there. Once the expiration date is reached, it is destroyed by the owner. Persistent cookies track visitors as they move around the website to figure out what people like about the website to help improve the user experience. The most popular persistent cookie is a Google Analytics cookie.

First Party Cookies – First-party cookies are directly stored by the website (or domain) you visit. These cookies allow website owners to collect analytics data, remember language settings, and perform other useful functions that provide a good user experience. The domain host can see the data that the cookie retrieves. First-party cookies can’t usually be used to track a user’s activity on another site other than the original website it was placed on. These types of cookies include things such as your sign-on credentials, items you put in the shopping cart or your preferred language. First-party cookies are set by the publisher’s web server, or any JavaScript loaded on the website.

Third Party Cookies – Third-party cookies are created by domains that are not on the website (or domain) that you are visiting. These are usually used for online-advertising purposes and placed on a website through adding scripts or tags. A third-party cookie is accessible on any website that loads the third-party server’s code. Online advertising is the most common use of third-party cookies. By adding their tags to a page, which may or may not display adverts, advertisers can track a user (or their device) across many of the websites they visit.

Marketing – UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) Data is stored for 7 days on the website, UTM data is used to track the effectiveness of online marketing campaigns and attributing online income. The 7-day window is the retention period decided upon to assist achieving the above.

No sensitive or personal data is tracked as part of the UTM data retention and if you do not wish your online activity to be stored for 7 days, we advise you clear your cache via your web browser.

How can I manage my cookie preference with Operation Smile UK?

Operation Smile United Kingdom uses a cookie preferences tool called Google Tag Manager to customise your cookie preferences. This tool will record your consent in accordance to our cookie policy and will ask for it again every 12 months, to ensure you stay up to date with changes made to our cookie policy.

If you opt to delete cookies or prevent us from placing cookies onto your device, some features of our website may not be as effective or work in the intended manner. To delete or review cookies that are on your device, you will need to go into the settings of your browser and review them.

You can change your cookie preferences at any time by visiting the following link and adjusting your settings: Cookie Preferences

Strictly Necessary cookies cannot be disabled. These cookies are essential for you to be able to use and move around websites or for you to use certain features.

You may notice some other cookies that are not related to Operation Smile UK’s website. Some of our pages contain embedded content such as YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, Facebook likes or Google+ shares etc.., and you may receive cookies delivered from these websites. Depending on the cookies you choose to allow some of their content may not work.

Operation Smile UK does not govern the publication of third-party cookies. To understand more about these third-party cookies and their privacy policies please visit their websites directly.

Alternatively, you can easily control and disable cookies, including third party cookies, through your browser settings. Learn how to remove cookies set on your device by visiting: https://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/clear-cookies-installed.html

How does Operation Smile UK use cookies and similar technologies?

Operation Smile United Kingdom uses cookies and tracking technologies to:

  • Improve the user experience on our website
  • Monitor the effectiveness of any fundraising activities
  • Use the information to make potential marketing decisions
  • Monitor email activity
  • Measure what content is popular on our website and track user’s movements through our websites to build a wider picture on site performance
  • To build an audience of people like those who visit our sites. This helps us find new potential supporters.
  • Provide us with aggregate statistics about how people use our website

The collected data is NOT personally identifiable and therefore cannot be tied back to an individual user. This information is not used to develop a personal profile of you.

Google Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics to analyse traffic and provide anonymous information about your use of the website.

For further details please read Google Analytics Overview.

You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies by using Google’s Opt Out Tool.

What cookies does Operation Smile use?

CookieTypedescription
__cf_bmSessionThis cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of the website. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
CookieConsentPersistentThis cookie is used to stop our site from alerting you to our cookie policy after you have consented to cookies for the first time. This cookie will be stored for 1 year.
__stripe_midPersistentThis cookie is necessary for making credit card transactions on the website. The service is provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information. This cookie will be stored for 1 year.
__stripe_sidSessionThis cookie is necessary for making credit card transactions on the website. The service is provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
mPersistentThis cookie is used by Stripe to determine the device used to access the website. This allows the website to be formatted accordingly. This cookie will be stored for 400 days.
1SessionThis cookie is set by Stripe to register data on visitors’ website-behaviour. This is used for internal analysis and website optimisation. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
_mfSessionThis cookie is necessary for making credit card transactions on the website. The service is provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
_abSessionThis cookie is necessary for making credit card transactions on the website. The service is provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
IdSessionThis cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
TESTCOOKIESENABLEDSessionThis is a test cookie for Google Pay. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
NIDPersistentThis cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to help build a profile of your interests and show you relevant ads on other sites. This cookie will be stored for 6 months.
ConsentPersistentThis cookie is set by Google and used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website. This cookie will be stored for 2 years.
__paypal_storage__PersistentThis cookie is used in context with the PayPal payment-function on the website. The cookie is necessary for making a safe transaction through PayPal. 
TESTCOOKIESENABLEDSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube to track user’s interaction with embedded content. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
remote_sidSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and is necessary for the implementation and functionality of YouTube video-content on the website. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEYSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to track user’s interaction with embedded content. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
YSCSessionThis cookie is used by Youtube and is used to keep statistics of what videos the user has seen. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVEPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to keep statistics of what videos the user has seen, as well as provide ad delivery or retargeting. This cookie will be stored for 6 months.
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATAPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s cookie consent state for the current domain. This cookie will be stored for 6 months.
CONSENTPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to detect if the visitor has accepted the marketing category in the cookie banner. This cookie is necessary for GDPR-compliance of the website. This cookie will be stored for 2 years.
yt-remote-device-idPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-cast-installedSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
yt-remote-cast-availableSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
yt-remote-session-appSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
yt-remote-session-nameSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
yt-remote-fast-check-periodSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
yt-remote-connected-devicesPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
YtldbMeta#databasesPersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to track user’s interaction with embedded content.
LogsDatabaseV2:V#||
LogsRequestsStore
PersistentThis cookie is used by YouTube and stores the user’s video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
nextIDSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to track user’s interaction with embedded content. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
requestsSessionThis cookie is used by YouTube and is used to track user’s interaction with embedded content. This cookie will only be stored for the duration of your browser session.
collectPersistentThis cookie is used to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor’s device and behavior. Tracks the visitor across devices and marketing channels.
_gaPersistentThis cookie is used by Google Analytics. It registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. This cookie will be stored for two years.
_ga_#PersistentThis cookie is used by Google Analytics to collect data on the number of times a user has visited the website as well as dates for the first and most recent visit. This cookie will be stored for two years.
_gidPersistentThis cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and updates a unique value for each page visited and is used to count and track pageviews. This cookie will be stored for one day.
pagead/landingPersistentThis cookie is used by Google to track the conversion rate between the user and the advertisement banners on the website. This serves to optimise the relevance of the advertisements on the website.

Changes and review to this policy

This policy will be reviewed periodically and may be changed/updated to reflect the review. Please ensure that you stay up to date by visiting our website and checking.

Last review date: July 2023

Next Review Date: June 2024