Should grandparents put a baby's date of birth on a baby club account?

What does Boots actually require to open Parenting Club?

The official Boots Parenting Club join form, checked 10 September 2026, states: "To join Boots Parenting Club you need to enter either your due date or your child's date of birth." It also says the club is "Exclusive to Boots Advantage Card members who are expecting a baby or have children under 5 years old." The two ticks are "I am expecting a baby" and "I have children under 5 years old".

There is no published field for "I am a grandparent" and no published option to join without a date. If nan opens the club on her Advantage Card, the date she types is stored against her membership. That is a second adult creating a record of a child's birth date, not mum filling in her own form.

Why does a baby's date of birth count as the child's data?

A date of birth plus a name and address can identify a child. The ICO's children's-marketing guidance says children merit specific protection when organisations use their personal information for marketing, and that using a child's data for targeting includes the work that leads up to sending offers — not only an email addressed to the child.

The same guidance says organisations should minimise what they collect, limit sharing with third parties, and not keep children's information longer than needed for the stated purpose. It does not ban every baby club. It does mean a due date or birth date is not a harmless "just for the free pack" field once it sits on someone else's account.

Official records show the ICO has already fined parenting clubs for sharing data about very young children, including birth date and gender. A published penalty is a warning about past practice, not a finding about every current club form.

What did the ICO publish about baby clubs and birth dates?

In April 2019 the ICO fined Bounty (UK) Ltd £400,000 under the Data Protection Act 1998. The ICO's later data-broking investigation paper lists that penalty. BBC News and The Guardian reported the investigation found Bounty shared tens of millions of records, including information about new mothers and very young children such as birth date and gender, with organisations that were not clearly named to members.

The same ICO paper lists an earlier £140,000 penalty (August 2018) against Lifecycle Marketing (Mother and Baby) Ltd, trading as Emma's Diary. Those decisions were about transparency and sharing, not about whether a shop may ask a parent for a due date to stage offers.

What can grandparents do instead of putting the baby's date on their club?

1. 1
   Keep shopping on a plain Advantage Card A grandparent can hold an Advantage Card and buy nappies, wipes or gifts without opening Parenting Club. The join form's extra points line is a club perk, not a till requirement.
2. 2
   Let the parent open the club on their own card If the family wants staged offers, the adult with day-to-day care is the person who can see the privacy wording and choose whether to type a due date or birth date.
3. 3
   If a club is already open in nan's name, correct or close it Use the club's profile or privacy contact to remove the child's date, change the account to the parent's, or close the membership. Ask what third parties already received the date.
4. 4
   Do not invent a "family" date A guessed or borrowed date still creates a child record. Boots' error text is that the form will not submit without a real due date or child's date of birth — it is not an invitation to approximate.

In shortBoots will not open Parenting Club without a due date or child's date of birth. That date is the child's information on whoever's card is used. ICO guidance and the 2019 Bounty penalty are about protecting that data, not about banning grandparents from buying baby kit.