Privacy and terms
Terms of use including privacy, cookies and disclaimer.
Terms of use including privacy, cookies and disclaimer.
Wellcome is committed to safeguarding your personal information in accordance with data protection law.
The Wellcome Privacy Statement [PDF 378KB] explains how, and on what legal basis, we collect, store, and use personal information about you as:
- a visitor to Wellcome Collection, our offices and our websites
- an applicant for a job at Wellcome
- a participant in any of our events
- a lender or donor to, or recipient of loan items from, Wellcome Collection
- or when you otherwise choose to interact with us.
It also explains how we use personal information in Wellcome Collection for the purpose of archiving in the public interest.
Information on how we collect, store and use personal information in connection with grant-making is set out in our Wellcome Grants Privacy and Confidentiality Statement [PDF 314KB].
If you would like to make a request to access, change or otherwise query how we use your personal data, you can email us at dataprotection@wellcome.org, or complete this form.
Our websites
This Cookie Policy relates to your use of our websites: https://wellcome.org and https://wellcomecollection.org.
Like most organisations, Wellcome uses Cookies, and similar technologies such as tracking pixels (referred to in this policy together as "Cookies"), to capture information about our website users (referred to as "you"). A Cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded onto your computer or device by a website, stored and used to send information back to that website.
Our websites may link to other websites owned and operated by third parties for which we are not responsible. These other third party websites may also use Cookies, but will do so in accordance with their own policies, which are separate from ours. Please consult these separate policies as appropriate.
When you choose to accept or reject Cookies on one of our websites, your choices are valid for that website only. If you click through to another website, whether operated by us or a third party you will need to make separate choices in relation to the Cookies that you would like to accept or reject on that other website.
If you consent to the use of analytics Cookies on one of our websites, we will use these, in general terms, to recognise you, to count your visits to that website, and to see how you move around that website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience while you browse, for example by helping to make sure you can find what you need. It also allows us to improve the way the website works.
Cookies are also set on our websites when you:
- select a guide type whilst using exhibition guides
- watch videos
- register for services
- take part in surveys and other activities.
If you consent to the use of marketing Cookies on one of our websites, we will use these to measure how you are interacting with our marketing and advertising materials and the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns.
As well as Cookies that we set (sometimes referred to as first party Cookies), we allow the use of some third party Cookies on our websites. These third party Cookies are set by other websites. The third party Cookies that we allow are from:
- YouTube
- Hotjar
- Twitter.
We only ever use this information provided by third party Cookies in aggregate, and never associate it with any information that might identify you personally.
For more information on our use of Cookies by type, see the tables below.
For more information on Cookies generally, see https://www.aboutcookies.org/ and https://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
Cookies consent and changing preferences
We will ask for your consent to place Cookies on your computer or device, except in certain circumstances where Cookies are necessary for the transmission of a communication, or where Cookies are essential for us to provide you with a service that you have requested (see the section on essential Cookies below for more information about how we use these types of Cookies).
You can withdraw your consent to the use of Cookies or manage any other Cookie preferences by changing your Cookie settings. This page can also be accessed by clicking on 'Cookie settings' in the footer of our websites. You can then adjust the radio buttons to ‘on’ or ‘off’ and save. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect.
Cookies we use
Analytics cookies
1. Google Analytics Cookies
We use Google Analytics on our websites. Google Analytics Cookies collect information related to the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from, and the pages they visited. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the website.
We use the following Google Analytics Cookies on our websites:
| Cookie | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| Collect | Used to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor's device and behaviour. Tracks the visitor across devices and marketing channels. | End of the browser session |
| _ga and _gid | Registers a unique ID that is used to distinguish visitors and generate statistical data on how each visitor uses the website. |
2 years (_ga) |
| _gat | Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate (limit the number of requests that have to be made to Google). | 1 day |
| _ga_# | Used by Google Analytics to collect data on the number of times a user has visited the relevant website, as well as dates for the first and most recent visit. | 2 years |
Read Google’s statement on safeguarding your data.
2. Other analytics Cookies
We also use the following analytics Cookies on our websites:
| Cookie | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| Hotjar Cookies | ||
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | Determines if the user's navigation should be registered in a certain statistical place holder. | 1 day |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | Used to count how many times a website has been visited by different visitors. This is done by assigning the visitor an ID, so the visitor does not get registered twice. | 1 day |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | Registers data on visitors' website-behaviour. This is used for internal analysis and website optimisation. | 1 day |
| _hjFirstSeen | Used to determine if the visitor has visited the relevant website before, or if it is a new visitor on the website. | 1 day |
| _hjid | Sets a unique ID when a visitor first accesses a page on the relevant website. That visitor’s behaviour in future visits to the website is then attributed to the same unique ID. This allows our websites to obtain statistical data on visitor behaviour. | 1 year |
| YouTube Cookies | ||
| VSC* | We embed videos on our websites from our official YouTube channel using YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set Cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, which measure how you view YouTube videos on our websites. YouTube will not store personally-identifiable Cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode. | End of the browser session |
| remote_sid* | End of the browser session | |
| PREF* | 8 months | |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE* | 8 months |
Read Hotjar's privacy policy and how YouTube maintains user privacy.
Marketing Cookies
We use the following marketing cookies on our websites:
| Cookie | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| Personalization_id | Set by Twitter to measure the performance of advertising campaigns through Twitter, across different browsers and devices used by a visitor. | 2 years |
| _gcl_au | Used through Google Analytics to understand user interaction with the site and advertising | 3 months |
| lms_ads | Used to identify LinkedIn Members off LinkedIn in the designated countries for advertising | 30 days |
| UserMatchHistory | Used for LinkedIn advert ID syncing | 30 days |
Read more about Twitter’s use of cookies and LinkedIn's cookie policy
Essential Cookies
We use the following essential Cookies on our websites:
| Cookie | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| AWSELB | Distributes traffic to the website on several servers in order to optimise response times. | End of the browser session |
| AWSELBCORS | Registers which server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimise user experience. | End of the browser session |
| rc::a | Distinguishes between humans and bots. | 2 years |
| rc::c | Distinguishes between humans and bots. | End of the browser session |
| has_js | Registers whether or not the user has activated JavaScript in the browser. | End of the browser session |
| CookieConsent | Stores the user's Cookie consent state for the current domain. | 1 year |
| __cfruid | Part of the services provided by Cloudflare, including load-balancing, deliverance of website content and serving DNS connection for website operators. | End of the browser session |
| AWSALBCORS | Registers which server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimise user experience. | 6 days |
| tableau_locale | Determines the preferred language and country-setting of the visitor. This allows the website to show content most relevant to that region and language. | End of the browser session |
| __zlcmid | Used by Zendesk (zopim.com) to provide live customer service chat on our website(s). | 12 months |
Controlling all Cookies
You can prevent your information from being used by Google Analytics by using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
You can opt out of tracking from all participating companies through the Your Online Choices website.
In addition to the Cookie choices presented within our websites, you can also use your web browser to manage your Cookies. For example, your web browser will enable you to:
- delete all or selected Cookies
- block all Cookies
- allow all Cookies
- block ‘third party’ Cookies
- clear all Cookies when you close the browser
- open a 'private browsing'/ 'incognito' session, which allows you to browse the web without recording your browsing history or storing local data such as Cookies.
If you do choose to block Cookies, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of our websites.
Find out more about managing Cookies on browsers:
- Microsoft Edge
- Internet Explorer
- Chrome
- Firefox
- Safari – mobile devices and desktops
- Opera.
Contact us
If you want to contact us in relation to this Cookie Policy, contact our Data Protection Officer:
Data Protection Officer
Wellcome Trust
215 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE
United Kingdom
This policy was last updated on 8 March 2021.
The Wellcome website is operated by The Wellcome Trust Limited (as trustee of the Wellcome Trust) (Wellcome). Content on the Wellcome website is provided for general and research purposes only. Wellcome accepts no responsibility for losses arising from reliance on information contained on the Wellcome website, or other sites that we may link to from time to time. In particular, Wellcome accepts no responsibility for losses arising from re-use of content on the Wellcome website without conducting your own due diligence.
Unless otherwise stated, content on the Wellcome website is © The Wellcome Trust and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) licence.
This means you can share the content on the Wellcome website by copying and distributing it, but you must comply with the terms of the CC-BY-4.0 licence, which includes acknowledging Wellcome as the copyright owner and providing a link to the source page on the Wellcome website. Please see https://creativecommons.org/licenses for more information.
The Wellcome Collection website is operated by Wellcome. Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that is committed to the long-term preservation of and access to its collections online and on-premises, to ensure they can be used by researchers and the wider public for generations to come.
The copyright status of content made available on the Wellcome Collection website will vary. We publish a range of material which is still in copyright and in certain circumstances, take a risk-managed approach towards the publication of material in which the copyright position is less clear. Please refer to copyright information provided on the relevant pages on the Wellcome Collection website for further information.
If you use and/or share content from our collections, you must do so in compliance with the law. In order to comply with UK Data Protection Law, in some cases, we may redact the names and/or ages of individuals that feature in our collections for sensitivity purposes. In other circumstances, alternative actions may be required. Please see our Access Policy and Access to personal and sensitive information within our collections for further information.
Despite the measures we take, there may be objections to the presence of specific information or the material being made available online. Please see our ‘Copyright clearance and takedown guidelines for digitised content’ for further information about our copyright clearance process, the circumstances under which we would consider removing material from our website, and how to contact us regarding the removal of material.