Last updated: May 12, 2025
This Notice explains how we (“Unity Health Toronto” or “UNITY”) use cookies and similar technologies on our website. You should read this policy so you can understand what type of cookies we use, or the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used. For any personal information collected through the use of cookies and similar technologies, our Privacy Notice also applies and complements this Notice.
You can manage your consent preferences at any time to accept or reject the use of various categories of cookies, which are not strictly necessary, through our Cookie Consent Manager. If you disable cookies and similar technologies, however, some features may not work as intended.
What are Cookies and similar technologies?
A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that websites that you visit ask your browser to store on your device (such as your computer or smartphone) in order to remember information about you between visits, such as your language preferences or device information. ‘Similar technologies’ falling under the generic term ‘cookies’ also include local objects (sometimes called flash cookies), web beacons, pixels, browser fingerprinting technologies or any technology that stores or accesses information on the user’s device. This information does not usually allow us to identify you, but it can offer you a better user experience when visiting our Site.
Cookies may be temporary (or session) cookies, which are only in use while you visit our Site and are deleted when you close your browser, or permanent/persistent cookies, which stay on your device’s permanent storage after you leave our Site until you delete them manually or your browser deletes them after a period of time.
Cookies that are set by us are called first-party cookies. Any cookies that are set by the website or apps that you are visiting are called first-party cookies. Any cookies which are from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting (e.g., YouTube) are called third party cookies. These cookies are placed by someone other than us.
Types of Cookies
Cookies are used for the purposes set out below:
- Essential/Strictly Necessary Cookies: these cookies are required for the operation of our Site and use of its features, and therefore cannot be switched off in our systems. The information collected relates to the operation of our website. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personal data. They are used solely for the purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. The use of these cookies for the purposes described above is based on our legitimate interest to ensure the proper technical functioning of, access to and use of our Site.
- Functional Cookies: and are used to remember your choices and preferences (e.g., language preferences, changes to text size, any permissible customizations). If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
- Performance/Analytical Cookies: these cookies track information about Site traffic on how visitors use our Site (e.g., which pages are visiting most often, whether there are any error messages, and how visitors arrived at our website). Information collected by these cookies is used to improve the use of our Site, determine popularity of Content, identify trends to optimize our users’ experience, and compile analytic information (e.g., we use Google Analytics). These cookies are sometimes placed by third party providers of web traffic and analysis services. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when people have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
- Targeting Cookies: these cookies record your visitor to our Site, your browsing habits, and are used to identify and provide personalized features and for tracking traffic patterns to and from our Website. They can remember the other websites you visit before coming to the Site. These are also optional cookies.
What Cookies do we use?
| Cookie Name | Type | Description | Lifespan |
| wordpress_[hash] | First-party | Stores authentication details for admin access. | Session |
| wordpress_logged_in_[hash] | First-party | Indicates logged-in user identity. | Session |
| wordpress_test_cookie | First-party | Tests if cookies are enabled in the browser. | Session |
| wp-settings-{user_id} | First-party | Stores user-specific settings. | 1 year |
| wp-settings-time-{user_id} | First-party | Timestamp for when settings were stored. | 1 year |
| wp-saving-post | First-party | Tracks autosave status of a post. | 1 day |
| wp-postpass_[hash] | First-party | Grants access to password-protected posts. | 10 days |
| wordpress_sec_[hash] | First-party | Stores secure authentication credentials. | Session |
| wfwaf-authcookie-[hash] | First-party | Identifies the user and determines access level (admin or guest). | 12 hours |
| wf_loginalerted_[hash] | First-party | Tracks if admin was alerted to a new login. | Persistent |
| wfCBLBypass | First-party | Allows certain IPs to bypass country blocking. | 1 day |
| wfls-remembered-[hash] | First-party | Remembers a user’s login session if ‘Remember Me’ is checked. | 30 days |
| _ga | First-party | Distinguishes users by assigning a unique ID. | 2 years |
| _gid | First-party | Distinguishes users for 24 hours. | 24 hours |
| _gat | First-party | Limits the rate of requests (throttling). | 1 minute |
| _ga_<container-id> | First-party | Stores session state | 2 years |
| pum-368 | First-party | Remembers if a popup was closed to prevent it from reappearing. | Session |
| _optimole_session | First-party | Used to manage and optimize image delivery per session. | Session |
| search_filter | First-party | Stores the user’s filter selections for a more seamless experience. | Session |
| w3tc_referrer | First-party | Tracks the referrer for caching decisions and performance optimization. | Session |
Web Analytics
- Web analytics is the collection, analysis, and reporting of web traffic data. It is used to help determine how our Platform and Site can be improved to better serve visitors. We use Google Analytics to provide web analytics services.
- For the purpose of performing web analytics, certain types of information are collected during your visit to our Site.
- Date and time of website visits
- Type of browser, operating system and device used
- How you arrived at the website
- Pages visited and buttons/links clicked
- Terms entered into our search engine
- How long it took to do certain tasks
- Top user locations (by area)
- You will not be directly identified by web analytics data. We do this by ensuring any personal data found on the pages you visit is not collected, this includes names, addresses, and account information.
- The IP address of the device accessing the Site are used to determine the geographic location of visitors (city/province/country), but IP addresses are never stored in a format that can be used to identify an individual.
- For more information about Google Analytics or to prevent the storage and processing of this data (including your IP address) by Google, you can download and install the browser plug-in available at the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. You can also obtain additional information on Google Analytics’ data privacy and security at the following links:
How can I manage my cookies preferences?
- At any time, you can refuse cookies that are not necessary for the proper functioning and security of our Site, modify your cookie preferences, or accept all cookies here. By refusing certain types of cookies, the quality of your browsing experience on our Website may be reduced and the content you view may not be tailored to your interests.
Notification of Changes
- We may make some changes to or update this Notice from time to time without notice. It is your responsibility to check the Last Updated date of the Notice at the top of this page from time to time. Your continued use of the Platform (as defined in the Terms and Conditions) will mean you accept those changes.
Contact us
- If you have questions, concerns or complaints regarding this Cookie Notice, please contact our Privacy Officers:
Information Access and Privacy Office
Unity Health Toronto
30 Bond St. Toronto, Ont.,
M5B 1W8
privacy@unityhealth.to