Ask users for date of birth

[henocookie]

What

A best practice pattern of content, styles and components to ask users for their date of birth during a transaction.

Why

Date of birth is personal identifiable data (PID). Because of this, a pattern should be created for best practice when asking a user for their date of birth.

This was used in the NHS coronavirus status checker and the 111 Get an isolation note. It could be required for other services that need to verify a user's age.

It meets the needs of users by providing them with the necessary content to allow them to understand why their date of birth is needed and once they are happy with this, an easy way to provide their date of birth.

Anything else

The NHS coronavirus status checker uses the date input and details components but a pattern may be best for this proposal, including guidance on best practice language to use when asking a user for their date of birth.

There is also an date of birth question on the 111 get an isolation note service.

[mcheung-nhs]

GOV.UK design system pattern on dates:
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/dates/

[henocookie]

GOV.UK design system pattern on dates:
https://design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/dates/

GOV.UK also have an asking for a date of birth blog post.

[sarawilcox]

We've identified potential issues with punctuating elements in this pattern for screen reader users. We're going to do some research to understand them better. See Hint text.