Setting up a Privacy / Cookie policy

By this point everyone knows that it’s important to inform your site’s visitors of the information collected about them. This is where a privacy policy comes in.

We all know this, but finding information about what exactly needs to be included is harder to come by. A search on Google brings up a load of options for “free” privacy policy / cookie policy generators. Quids in! You just answer a few questions and they write it for you! Oh, you want to add a section on Google Analytics? We’ll have to charge for that. You want to change the wording? Mo money please!

Now they’re perfectly justified charging for this as they’re providing a valuable service. But it’s not free. So what do you do if you’re a little lost as to what needs including?

Sure you can read the long guides, but they all seem to lead to the inevitable “Use our generator! It’s free!!”. So are there genuinely free privacy policy generators? Yep!

Now, this isn’t going to be one of those lists of the best, free cookie / privacy policy generators. I found one, I used it, it worked and so I’m sharing that information. It may not have all the bells and whistles of the premium versions. But it does work and does seem to include all the information that I needed. This may not be appropriate for shops but that’s only because I haven’t used it for that yet. If it does, then feel free to correct me in the comments. If there are others, then let me know and I’ll add them to this page.

Here it is: https://termsandconditionstemplate.com/

Still not convinced? Let go through the process as if I was doing it for this site.

Clicking the Generate Privacy Policy (which at the time of writing is a new feature for them) will open the next page to let you choose what type of website the policy is for.

*IMPORTANT* Make sure you read the disclaimer, this is a generic template. So make sure you check the finished product to make sure it’s relevant to you.

Also note that the website works on donations, so please consider donating to keep the website free. As it’s such a valuable tool!

As CWebb Designs is a business website, that’s what I chose. Next page was entering basic information, pretty straight forward.

Business name, Website address, Email address, Telephone Number, Address.

The next page goes into specifics of what you want to include in the privacy policy.

• Website visitors – This is used for Google Analytics type trackers. Tick if you are monitoring or planning to keep track of how many visitors use the site (I’d say pretty much every website should have this ticked).
• Personally-Identifying Information (PII) – This can include name, address, date of birth, marital status, contact information, financial records and credit card information. It’s not limited to these but it should give you an idea of what this includes. Basically can the information be used to identify someone? Then tick the box. Not sure? Tick the box and remove it later if it doesn’t fit your website.
• Security – Did you tick the PII box above? Then tick this one too. It covers the eventuality that the personal information is hacked, nothing is 100% secure.
• Advertisements – Do you have adverts on the website? This one covers the fact that if they follow an advert link then this policy no longer applies and that the third party policy applies, including targeted advertising.
• Links to External Sites – Same as above, if a use clicks a link to an external site, the privacy of that site will apply and is recommended that the user reads the Privacy Policy is read for each site they visit.
• Google Adwords Remarketing – Using the Adwords scheme? Tick this box. Not using it? Guess what, don’t tick it.
• Aggregated Statistics – If you’re planning on using the visitor tracking data to show to others i.e. Monthly Usage Report, then tick this box. This does not include identifiable data like individual names, addresses, etc.
• Affiliate Disclosure – Using affiliate scheme to earn commission from links. Tick the box.
• Cookies – Pretty much every website uses at least one form of Cookie, even if you’re just tracking number of visitors the website is storing information. If you’ve ticked any of the other boxes or, in fact, using this generator. You’ll be using Cookies.
• Protection of Collected Information (recommended for membership sites) – If people are potentially going to registering on your site this clause is useful. It talks about how the personal information entered (e.g. Email Address) could be shared with employees of the company or potential affiliated organisations. This could cover getting technical support, offering competitions through mailing lists, court orders and many more.
• E-commerce – Website has a shop? Tick this. It is recommended to do further research if you’re opening a shop as you’ll need to include terms & conditions, refund policies, etc. Oh look this site does that too! Handy.
• Business Transfers – Covers if you get bought out, go bankrupt, etc and the assets are transferred or acquired by a third party. The personal information collected may be transferred over too.
• Privacy Policy Changes – Tells users that this policy may change, so it’s their responsibility to check it regularly.
• Credit – Want to credit this really helpful generator, go on, it is kind of helpful. Or donate to them. Or both!

 

Here is what I chose, remember you can still remove or add sections later if they don’t work for your situation:

Next you can add your own custom policies. I ignored this as you can do it later anyway. Enter the CAPTCHA (do not enter if you are robot, this isn’t for you) and then you can GET TEMPLATE!

If the captcha doesn’t quite work as expected, click the little reload button in the CAPTCHA box. Us robots need to stick together.

So you now have the full privacy policy you can view it in HTML or plain text. Copy whichever you want to use to your privacy page.

I cannot stress this enough, read through the policy before publishing. It’s not an overly long read and will save you in the long run.

 

Additional information – Cookie Consent Banner Plugin

There are loads out there to offer users the option to opt out of Cookies, this is required in most countries. Check your laws if unsure. For the UK, your website needs to be GDPR compliant.

One plugin that I liked was the GDPR Cookie Compliance Plugin. This plugin also covers, PIPEDA, CCPA, LGPD, AAP and general cookie law. The main reasons I liked it was that the free features cover the key things you need, it’s simple to use and the front end user interface is really satisfying to use.

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing is caring!