Cookie Policy

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded to your device when you visit the STV Children’s Appeal website. It is stored on your computer, tablet or mobile phone and allows us to recognise your device and store limited information about user preferences and past activity.

Local storage on your iOS or Android device can perform very similar functions to cookies. When we talk about “cookies” in this notice, we mean cookies or similar technologies such as local storage.

How this site uses cookies

Cookies are used on the STV Children’s Appeal site for the following purposes:

  • To ensure our website works as expected – some standard operations can rely on cookies to work, such as storing your cookie banner preferences.
  • To identify and prevent the use of malicious software on our website -for example, when you donate through our website, we ask you to confirm that you are not a robot. That functionality is powered by reCAPTCHA, a tool provided by Google that uses cookies to distinguish between humans and “bots”. reCAPTCHA helps us to identify, and block, fraudulent card payments made by “bots”, thereby protecting legitimate account holders.
  • To understand how the site is being used – for example, we measure how many times a page has been read and what sections of the site are most visited. This allows us to make improvements and deliver better content.

The different types of cookies we use

In order to ensure you have a clear understanding of what cookies are being used for on the STV Children’s Appeal site, we have listed their uses below.

Organisation setting the cookie Purpose(s) for which this cookie is used
STV Children’s Appeal STV Children’s Appeal uses a necessary cookie (CookieControl) to save your cookie banner preferences.
reCAPTCHA powered by Google We use the following necessary cookies that collect data about how you interact with our donations webpage to identify that you are a human and not a bot. These cookies process data to distinguish between humans and bots, allowing us to identify, and block, fraudulent card payments made by “bots”, thereby protecting legitimate bank account holders and preventing the use of malicious software on our website:
  • _grecaptcha
  • _GRECAPTCHA
  • rc::a
  • rc::b
  • rc::c.
Google Analytics Google Analytics is a web analytics tool provided by Google. Google Analytics uses cookies to help us understand how users use our website, in order to improve it. Such cookies will not be used to associate any information with other data held by Google.

The Google Analytics cookies that we use are:
  • _ga: used to distinguish users by assigning a randomly generated number, i.e. distinguishing whether a brand new or returning user;
  • _gid: used to track user journey whilst on the website, and
  • _gat_UA: used to throttle request rate, i.e how much traffic on the website.

You may reject or delete these cookies by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Web browser Add-on available here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

How you can manage cookies

When you first visit our site, you get the choice to either Accept or Manage Cookies. You can change your choice easily at any time in the Manage Cookies panel.

You can also set your browser to reject cookies from all websites or from sites that you choose individually. The settings differ from browser to browser but information about how to change cookie settings for the most popular browsers can be found here:

More information about cookies

If you would like more information about cookies, you can visit the website of the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)

Page last updated: 18 April 2023