Privacy and cookies

The short version: this site has no accounts, no forms and no newsletter. It doesn't ask you for anything. What it does do is count visits with Google Analytics, and it is built to show adverts supplied by Google — both of which involve cookies and similar technologies on your device.

Nothing is stored on your device until you say yes. You'll be asked once, on your first visit, with "reject" sitting right next to "accept" and no dark pattern between them. Decline and the site works identically — you just go uncounted. You will never see personalised advertising here, whatever you choose, because this site is written for an audience that includes under-18s.

This policy covers tlevelroute.co.uk. The data controller is Data Torturing Solutions — registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC218139. The way to reach the controller is email: hello@tlevelroute.co.uk.

What this site collects directly

Nothing you type. There is no sign-up, no login, no comment system, no contact form, no mailing list and no tracking pixel of its own. Nothing here asks for your name, your email or your grades.

What exists is aggregate traffic measurement, through Google Analytics — how many people read a page and what brought them to it. That's the next section. It shows which providers and courses are worth writing more about; it doesn't identify you or let anyone follow one reader around.

If you email, that message and whatever you wrote in it is obviously held — kept while it's useful (a correction thread, a removal request) and deleted when it's not.

Hosting and server logs

The site is served by Cloudflare, which processes requests on the controller's behalf and keeps short-lived operational logs — including IP addresses — to serve pages, block attacks and stop abuse. That processing is necessary for the site to work securely and rests on a legitimate interest in keeping it available. Cloudflare's own privacy policy explains what it does with that data. Cloudflare may also set a security cookie to identify trusted traffic.

Analytics

Google Analytics is used to see which pages get read and where readers arrive from. It reports in aggregate: page views, the site or search engine that referred you, device and browser type, and an approximate location — country and city at the finest, worked out from your IP address and then discarded rather than stored in reports. Nobody can see your name or your email in any of it, or pull out one reader's history.

Analytics cookies aren't set until you accept them. Analytics storage is denied by default in the tag itself, so before you answer — and permanently, if you decline — Google Analytics counts the visit without storing anything on your device, which means it can't tell whether you've been here before. You lose nothing by declining; the site only loses the ability to tell a returning reader from a new one.

Google processes this data on the controller's behalf; its processing terms and the Google Analytics privacy notice explain what it does with it. Email hello@tlevelroute.co.uk to have what's held deleted. If you'd rather not be counted on any site that uses Analytics, Google publishes a browser opt-out add-on.

Advertising and cookies

Adverts on this site, once active, will come from Google AdSense — the account is not yet set up, so no advertising cookie is set on this site today. This section describes what happens once it is:

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies and similar identifiers to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site or other sites.
• Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this and other sites on the internet.
• You will be able to opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google's Ad Settings. Opting out doesn't remove the ads — it makes them less relevant, not less frequent.
• You can opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info or, in the UK and Europe, Your Online Choices.

Google explains how it handles data from sites that use its services in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and How Google uses cookies in advertising. Where Google acts as an independent controller of that data, its own privacy policy applies rather than this one.

Your consent choices

On your first visit you're asked whether to accept cookies for advertising and measurement. Accept and reject are the same size, the same colour and one click each — there is no "manage preferences" maze standing between you and no. Until you answer, and forever if you decline, no advertising or analytics cookie is set.

Declining costs you nothing. Every page works the same either way; you simply go uncounted and, once advertising is active, the adverts stop being able to cap how often you see the same one.

You can change your mind at any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of every page, which reopens the same choice. Cookies your browser has already stored can also be cleared or blocked in its settings; every major browser lets you do this per site.

One thing is not on the menu, because it is not offered at all: personalised advertising. That signal is switched off permanently and accepting cookies does not turn it on. See "Readers under 18" below for why.

What the cookies are for

• Advertising — only if you accept, and only once AdSense is active. Set by Google and its advertising partners to select ads, measure whether they were seen or clicked, cap how often you see the same one, and detect fraudulent clicks. Not to build a profile of you: that is switched off separately and permanently.
• Analytics — only if you accept. Set by Google Analytics, on this domain, to count a visit and recognise a device that comes back. Decline and Analytics still counts the page view, but writes nothing and cannot tell you apart from anyone else.
• Security — set by Cloudflare to distinguish real visitors from automated abuse. These are strictly necessary for the site to be served safely, so they are not part of the choice.
• Your choice itself — the accept-or-decline answer is stored in your browser so you aren't asked on every page. Nothing is written until you answer, and declining stores only the fact that you declined.

None of these are written by hand in the sense of being code specific to this site: the analytics ones are set by Google's script running on this domain, and the advertising ones (once active) are chosen by Google and its partners and change over time — which is why an exhaustive per-cookie list isn't published here.

Readers under 18

Most people choosing a T Level are aged 16 to 19, and this site is written for their parents too. That means it is likely to be accessed by under-18s, so the UK's Age Appropriate Design Code applies to it and has been taken as the standard to design to, rather than the lower bar of asking whether a reader is old enough to consent for themselves.

In practice that means the privacy-protective setting is the default and you don't have to go looking for it. Nothing is stored before you answer. Nothing on the site asks how old you are — collecting your age in order to protect you would mean collecting more about you, not less. And because there's no way to know who is under 18, the protection is applied to everyone rather than to a group that would have to be identified first.

The concrete effect: the personalised-advertising signal is set to denied on every page load and is never granted, including for readers who accept cookies. Advertising here, once active, will be non-personalised — chosen by the page you're on, not by a profile of you. This is enforced by the site itself on every request, rather than being a setting that could quietly change later.

If you're a parent and want something removed or explained, email hello@tlevelroute.co.uk.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to ask what personal data is held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to or restrict its processing, and to receive a copy of it. Email hello@tlevelroute.co.uk to exercise any of these and expect a response within one month.

Realistically, for a reader who has only ever loaded pages, nothing is held that identifies you — so the more effective route for advertising data is Google's own controls, linked above. If you think your data has been mishandled you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority.

Changes

If this policy changes materially — new analytics, a new ad partner, anything that collects more than today — this page and the date below will be updated before the change goes live.

Last updated: 30 August 2026.