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Cookie Policy

What we store on your device, why, and how to turn it off.

Draft template. This describes the site as currently built. If you add analytics, advertising, live chat, embedded maps or video, or social sharing buttons, this policy becomes inaccurate immediately and a consent banner becomes legally necessary. Have it reviewed by a qualified solicitor and re-audit it whenever the site changes.

The law that applies

Cookies and similar technologies are governed in the UK by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, regulation 6, read together with the UK GDPR standard of consent. This is reserved law and applies identically in Scotland.

In practice that means:

  • You must be told, in clear terms, what is stored on your device and why.
  • Anything not strictly necessary to deliver the service you asked for requires your consent before it is set — not after.
  • Consent must be a positive action. Pre-ticked boxes, and banners saying “by continuing to browse you accept cookies”, are not valid consent.
  • Rejecting must be as easy as accepting, on the first layer of any banner.
  • Consent must be as easy to withdraw as it was to give.

“Strictly necessary” is a narrow exemption. It covers things like maintaining a login session. It does not cover analytics, however anonymous the provider claims to be.

What we currently use

This build of the site sets no advertising, tracking or analytics cookies. We use browser local storage for one thing only:

  • upbss-theme — remembers whether you chose the light or dark version of the site. It contains no personal data, is never sent to a server, and is created only when you actively click the theme toggle. If you never touch it, nothing is stored.

Third-party requests

Even without cookies, loading a resource from another company’s server discloses your IP address and browser details to that company. This site loads the Fraunces, Work Sans and Space Mono typefaces from Google Fonts, which discloses your IP address to Google and may involve processing outside the UK.

We recommend self-hosting the font files and removing the Google Fonts links from the page head. That removes an international transfer and a third-party disclosure entirely, and the site is already designed to fall back gracefully to system fonts.

If analytics are added

Analytics cookies are not strictly necessary and require consent before being set. If analytics are introduced, all of the following must be in place first:

  • A consent banner that blocks the analytics script until the visitor accepts
  • “Reject all” presented as prominently as “Accept all”
  • A way to change that choice later, reachable from every page
  • This policy updated to name the provider and list each cookie, its purpose and its lifespan
  • A record of consents, so compliance can be demonstrated

The same applies to embedded maps, video players, live chat and social media widgets, which typically set third-party cookies on load.

Controlling storage

You can clear or block cookies and local storage at any time from your browser settings, and browse in a private window to discard everything on close. Clearing the theme entry simply means the site follows your operating system’s light or dark setting again.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we use cookies, contact us at customerservice@upbss.com. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates these rules, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

Questions about this document? Email customerservice@upbss.com or write to UPBSS Property Group, [registered office address], Edinburgh.