Cookie policy

Background and objectives

This cookie policy explain what electronic cookies are, how our sales website (alliancehomes.org.uk) uses them and how all visitors to our website can manage cookies.

What are cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device (computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.) when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently and to provide information to website owners.

To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit aboutcookies.orgor www.allaboutcookies.org.

How do we use cookies?

Cookies such as Google Analytics help us to collect information on how people use our website, including the number of visitors, and which parts of the site they visit. This information helps us to make improvements to our website and make sure it is meeting your needs.

What cookies are present on the sales website and why?

You can view the cookies used on our sales website in the tables below (as at 1 April 2026). These cookies are set either by Alliance Homes or by third parties, such as YouTube or Microsoft, when content or software from those third parties are used on the site.

Necessary cookies

These are essential to enable you to move around the website and use its features.

Name

Purpose

Expires

ASP.NET_SessionId

ASP.Net_SessionId is a cookie which is used to identify the user’s session on the server. The session being an area on the server which can be used to store session state in between http requests.

Session

 

Analytics cookies

We use analytics cookies to understand how visitors interact with our website. These cookies collect information such as pages visited, time spent on the site and how users navigate between pages. The information is used to improve the performance and usability of our website. Analytics cookies may collect a unique identifier and where possible this data is anonymised and does not directly identify you. 

Name

Purpose

Expires

_clck

This cookie is installed by Microsoft Clarity to store information of how visitors use a website and help in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected includes the number of visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.

1 year

_clsk

This cookie is installed by Microsoft Clarity to store information of how visitors use a website and help in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected includes the number of visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.

24 hours

SM

This is a Microsoft cookie used to measure the use of the website for internal analytics.

Session

CLID

The cookie is set by embedded Microsoft Clarity scripts. The purpose of this cookie is for heatmap and session recording.

1 year

MicrosoftApplicationsTelemetryDeviceId

Used to store a unique device ID for tracking behaviour and usage of the website.

1 year

ASP.NET_Sessio

General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written with Microsoft .NET based technologies. Usually used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server.

Session

ASP.NET_Sessio_Fallback

Fallback session cookie to support older browsers that haven't implemented the Secure flag. In modern evergreen browsers this cookie is never set as it hasn't got the Secure flag.

Session

.AspNetCore.Antiforgery.

Anti-forgery cookie is a security mechanism to defend against cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks.

Session

__RequestVerificationToken

This is an anti-forgery cookie set by web applications built using ASP.NET MVC technologies. It is designed to stop unauthorised posting of content to a website, known as Cross-Site Request Forgery.

Session

 

Marketing cookies

We do not use marketing or advertising cookies and do not carry out any profiling for marketing purposes. However, third party providers such as social media platforms or video providers may set their own cookies when you interact with our content. We do not control these cookies, and we do not store them. 

Name

Purpose

Expires

lu

Used to record whether the person chose to remain logged in.

2 years

xs

Used in conjunction with the c_user cookie to authenticate your identity to Facebook.

90 days

c_user

Used in conjunction with the xs cookie to authenticate your identity to Facebook.

90 days

m_user

Used to authenticate your identity on Facebook's mobile website.

90 days

pl

Used to record that a device or browser logged in via Facebook platform.

90 days

dbln

Used to enable device-based logins.

2 years

aks

Determines the login state of a person visiting accountkit.com.

30 days

aksb

Authenticates logins using Account Kit.

30 minutes

sfau

Optimizes recovery flow after failed login attempts.

1 day

ick

Stores an encryption key used to encrypt cookies.

2 years

csm

Facebook fraud prevention.

90 days

s

Facebook browser identification, authentication, marketing, and other Facebook-specific function cookies.

90 days

datr

Used to prevent creation of fake / spammy accounts. Datr cookie is associated with a browser, not individual people.

2 years

sb

Facebook browser identification, authentication, marketing, and other Facebook-specific function cookies.

2 years

fr

Contains a unique browser and user ID, used for targeted advertising.

90 days

oo

Ad optout cookie

5 years

ddid

Used to open a specific location in an advertiser's app upon installation.

28 days

locale

This cookie contains the display locale of the last logged in user on this browser. This cookie appears to only be set after the user logs out.

7 days

_fbp

Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.

3 months

_fbc

Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.

2 years

js_ver

Records the age of Facebook javascript files.

7 days

rc

Used to optimise site performance for advertisers.

7 days

campaign_click_url

Records the Facebook URL that an individual landed on after clicking on an ad promoting Facebook.

30 days

wd

This cookie stores the browser window dimensions and is used by Facebook to optimise the rendering of the page.

Session

usida

Collects a combination of the user’s browser and unique identifier, used to tailor advertising to users.

Session

presence

The presence cookie is used to contain the user’s chat state.

Session

GPS

Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.

1 day

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing.

6 months

PREF

This cookie stores your preferences and other information, in particular preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.

10 years

YSC

Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.

Session

DEVICE_INFO

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.

180 days

LOGIN_INFO

This cookie is used to play YouTube videos embedded on the website.

2 years

VISITOR_PRIVACY

_METADATA

YouTube visitor privacy metadata cookie.

6 months

__Secure-YNID

YouTube to rack user interactions with embedded content.

6 months

__Secure-ROLLOUT_TOKEN

YouTube to manage phased rollout of new features.

6 months

How to change cookie preferences

You can accept all cookies or accept ‘only necessary cookies’ which will decline marketing and analytics cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of our site and any preferences will be lost if you delete cookies. You can change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking on the cog symbol in the corner. It will bring up a pop-up box allowing the user to define their cookie preferences.

Alternatively, most web browsers allow users to control most cookies through the browser settings. Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

Google Chrome
Microsoft Edge
Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Opera
Apple Safari

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Monitoring, consultation, and review

The Head of Communications is responsible for the implementation, monitoring and review of this policy.

Customers, colleagues, and service users may be involved in giving feedback on this policy, leading to amendments where appropriate.

The Data Protection implications of the policy have been considered. Including but not limited to:

  • IAR amendments/updates
  • ROPA amendments/updates
  • New or updated Data Protection Impact Assessment
  • Privacy Notice amendments
  • Retention periods for any new data and method of archiving or deletion.

 

This policy will be reviews within two years of its approval date.

This policy will be signed off by the Strategic Leadership Team

This policy will be published externally on the Alliance Homes sales website.

Equality and diversity

This policy is subject to a periodic Equality Impact Assessment (EIA).

The purpose of such an assessment is to consider the effect of the policy regarding the recognised protected characteristics of equality ad ensure that it does not unfairly impact any individual or group. The protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity or other grounds set out in our Equality and Diversity Strategy and Single Equality Scheme. Remedial action will be undertaken if a detrimental effect is identified.

The EIA also requires the policy author to consider whether the policy is likely to negatively impact on a person’s Human Rights.

This policy and any other related Alliance Homes publications can be provided in other formats for those with visual, literacy or language difficulties.

Complaints

If you would like to raise a complaint in relation to this policy, you can do this by calling us on calling us on 03000 120 120 or emailing us at act@alliancehomes.org.uk.

All complaints will be handled in line with the latest Alliance Homes Complaint Handling Policy.

Associated documents

  • Alliance Homes Privacy Notice
  • The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
  • The UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
  1. Version control and approval dates

Equality Impact Assessment completed 

7/4/2026

SLT review / approval

21/05/2026

Next review date

May 2028