Let's talk about privacy

At Boots Opticians, we believe in making things easy for our customers. We have endeavoured to make this policy easy to follow and understand, but if you do have any questions, there are contact details at the very end.

The policy explains how Boots Opticians collects, uses, stores, and deletes your personal and clinical data.

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Our promise to you

At Boots Opticians, we are committed to protecting your privacy and data rights. We believe in using your personal information to make things simpler and better for you. We will always keep your personal information safe and will never sell it to third parties. We will be clear and open with you about why we collect your personal information and how we use it

Where you have choices or rights, we will explain them to you and respect your wishes. We’ve prepared this Privacy Policy to explain how and why we use your personal information. We hope you’ll find it clear and simple but if you have any concerns or questions, please feel free to contact our Boots Opticians Customer Care team.

Who's in control of your information?

You are. Throughout this Privacy Policy, ‘we’ or ‘Boots’ means companies within The Boots Group, including subsidiaries, affiliates, joint ventures and franchises. We share your personal information among these companies to keep you informed about our products and services, to handle any complaints or queries, and to give you the best customer service we possibly can.

However, we never lose sight of the fact that it is your personal information, and we will only send you marketing material if you have agreed that we can do so. You can find out more about the companies in The Boots Group on the Boots the Chemist website:

How we process your personal data

Collecting information about you

Boots Opticians collects personal information about you whenever you shop with us and when you use our services. Please see below examples of the data we collect from you:

Type	Example of data
Boots Advantage Card	Personal data about yourself, purchases, emails and other digital communications we send to you, including information about which emails you open, and what links you might click on.
Boot Opticians stores	Personal data about yourself, such as name, address, age, gender, ethnicity (Ethnicity is required for NHS Wales claims), contact details, purchases, appointment information, prescription, and language preference (Also as part of NHS Wales Service Agreement, stores also have to record the language preference of a patient in order to meet the Welsh Language Standards in Primary Care).
Appointment booking	Personal data about yourself, including name, address, age, gender, contact details, ethnicity, medical information, and any disabilities or accessibility requirements, to ensure appropriate support and adaptations when serving you. Additional information may be required in specific regions, for example: in Wales, your language preference (Welsh or English) is required to meet Welsh Language Standards in primary care, and ethnicity is required for NHS Wales claims
Social media	When opted into marketing we obtain information posted publicly on social media sites and use it to help us understand how our different customers interact with us and what people think and feel about our brand. We do this in a way that doesn’t always identify individual customers e.g. we may look at which groups of customers are more likely to talk to us via social media or use social media to talk about Boots products. Boots share pseudonymised data with social media platforms such as Facebook to enable Boots to deliver content and messages which may be of interest to you.
Processing data about children	Boots Opticians process children’s data for eye tests, contact lens trials/checks and processing prescriptions. Children under the age of 16 using these services must have a parent/guardian present to sign key documents, such as claim forms.
Information provided by other people on your behalf	If someone books an appointment on your behalf we will ask them for basic details about you, which may include health details (such potential family history of diabetes or glaucoma). This is to ensure your Opticians appointment is tailored to accommodate these and provides you with relevant services. We will check with you when you come to your appointment to make sure the information we’ve been given is accurate. If you’re booking an appointment or registering for a service for someone else, please make sure they’re happy for you to provide their personal information on their behalf and that they understand why the information is needed.
CCTV	When in a Boots Opticians practice, or a Boots store that houses a Boots Opticians practice, you may notice we use CCTV to detect and prevent crime. Where we use CCTV there will always be signage to inform you of this. If a crime has been committed and this is caught on CCTV, the footage/images may be used by our criminal intelligence team and inputted into an internal system (which is provided by a third party) for reporting and assisting the Police in their investigations.
AI	Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast becoming a well-used tool. Within Boots we act in accordance with current regulatory guidance issued by the Information Commissioners Office. Boots currently use AI for processing related to; Prevention and detection of crime, Creatives Transcripts and Internal tools.

How and why we use your personal information

We use your personal information to provide our products and services. Some are essential for us to provide the services you use or to fulfil our legal obligations. Some help us run our business efficiently and effectively. Some enable us to provide you with more relevant and personalised offers and information for example to set up and run your account, process orders and transactions, respond to queries and comments and provide you with the best possible level of customer service.

We may use it to contact you about orders you’ve placed, appointments you’ve booked, or to send you reminders. We may also contact you in emergency situations, such as an urgent product recall or where we have a duty of care to notify you of information that relates to your health.

In all cases we must have a reason and a legal ground for processing your personal information. Some of the most common legal grounds we rely on are briefly explained below.

	Detail	Example
Consent	You’ll be asked to confirm that you’re happy to provide your personal data and that you give permission to Boots Opticians to process your personal data. The below points will be explained to you at the beginning of your appointment: Why Boots Opticians want your data How your data will be used If your data will be shared Where Boots Opticians are relying on consent, you may experience the following: A tick box asking for your consent when on the Boots Opticians website. A personal conversation in store with an Opticians colleague. A conversation with a call centre agent if booking through them. You can tailor your consents to what suits you. You could choose to receive: Service messages and marketing emails (appointment confirmations/reminders including current discounts and offers) Only receive service messages (e.g. appointment confirmations/reminders) No communications at all (no service messages or marketing – you would only receive legal communications such as store closures/relocations and the movement of your data) You have the right to withdraw your consent from all processing at any time. However, please be aware, Boots Opticians cannot provide you with future eye tests or fulfil any others without processing your data.	Boots Opticians will ask for your consent in relation to marketing preferences, to ensure we only contact you via the medium you have chosen i.e. text or email
Contractual	Processing data for the purposes of a contract to which you are party to. There’s a range of legal and regulatory requirements we and our parent company need to comply with, and some of these may affect the way we process personal data, or the length of time for which we are required to keep it.	When you sign up to the Boots Opticians ‘Contact Lens Reward Plan’ (CLRP), you enter a contract in which you agree to the setup of a direct debit to receive contact lens products to your home, whilst enjoying the benefits that accompany this scheme.
Legal obligations	Where possible Boots Opticians will notify you when processing your data due to a legal obligation, however this may not always be possible.	In order to prevent and detect fraudulent or criminal activity we may share information with forces such as the Police. This is done in a safe and secure manner. You may not be notified of this. Boots Opticians may need to action clinical/NHS requirements, including but not limited to: Completing and submission of GOS claim forms (for more information on GOS claim forms, click here) Submitting a GP/hospital referral form should an Optometrist deem it necessary in your appointment. We will tell you when we share your data for these reasons. If we are moving the paper copies of your customer record due to the closing of a store or changing a store’s location, we legally must inform you of this.
Legitimate interest	Boots hold personal data for our own legitimate business interest. This relates to us managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/products and most secure experience. When we rely on this, we will carry out a legitimate interest assessment to ensure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. Our legitimate business interests don’t automatically override your interests - we won’t use your Personal Data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you, unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law.	We may process your information to protect you against fraud when interacting with us on our website, and to ensure our websites and systems are secure. If you purchase dry eye solutions or daily contact lenses, we may send communications highlighting the additional services that we can provide, such as: Dry Eye Service Myopia products and services Contact Lens Reward Plan information If you leave an Opticians appointment booking journey before completing your booking, we may use contact information you have already entered to email/text/call you to support with any issues you may have had in booking your appointment. The data is collected by a verified third-party (called Salecycle) who use your data for the single purpose of offering support. You will be provided with the option to opt out of this service. Your data will also be permanently deleted from Salecycle before, or at, 6 months.

Keeping our records up to date

All business areas (such as Pharmacy, Hearingcare, Advantage Card, No.7, Boots.com online accounts) share customer contact information into a central customer database to ensure that if you (for example) update your address with your local Boots Opticians store, your address will update with your local pharmacy or Hearingcare record. This means you don’t need to give the same details each time you come in or engage with a new area of Boots.

This also ensures that Boots Opticians is:

Legally compliant with regulating bodies (such as the General Optical Council (GOC) or the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)).
Legally compliant in correctly identifying you and your Opticians customer record to protect your personal and health data before discussing your information.
Ensuring your health reminders, marketing communications, or scheme updates are not sent to the wrong person.

Keeping our records up to date – can I opt out?

Yes, you can opt out, but doing so may prevent you from benefiting from Boots Opticians services in the future.

How do I opt out?

You can opt out by visiting your local Boots Opticians or contacting our contact centre on the details at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

Retention – How long will we keep your data for?

For adults, we will retain your clinical record for 10 years after you last attended any type of appointment with Boots Opticians.

This means that if you regularly attend your eye test appointments every one or two years, we could retain your optical clinical information for the duration of your lifetime.

However, if you stop attending your appointments at Boots Opticians, but return 11 years later, we will no longer have your historical optical clinical data, and you will be assigned with a brand-new customer record.

For children, we will retain your record for 10 years after you last attended any type of appointment with Boots Opticians, or until your 25th birthday, whichever is the later.

This means that if you are 10 years old, we will retain your clinical record for 15 years until your 25th birthday. Or, if you are 20 years old, we will retain your clinical records for 10 years, as we must legally retain your data for at least 10 years once you become an adult at 25 years of age.

Please be aware that a ‘clinical record’ includes (but is not limited to) the following:

All notes relevant to the clinical service provided
All notes relevant to dispensing spectacles
All notes relevant to dispensing contact lenses
Communication received from other medical providers e.g. Hospital eye services

If, however, you have a Boots Opticians customer record without any clinical information present (i.e. you cancelled your first appointment), we can delete your record. To action this, please submit a Right to Erasure request via the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

Building up a picture of you

We analyse your personal information, including the products you buy, your browsing habits and other ways you interact with Boots Opticians to evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising. This helps us provide more relevant offers, advice, and information across a variety of marketing channels, including online advertising and social media sites (such as Facebook and TikTok). Rest assured that we will only send you marketing material if you have consented to receiving marketing information.

We carry out analytics on the information we hold about our customers to help us understand who our customers are, how they use our services, and how people interact with us. This enables us to plan our business - for example, stock and staffing levels to make sure we offer the same experience online as in our stores, maximise the effectiveness of our advertising, and understand how our business is performing. We don’t do this in a way that enables individual customers to be identified.

Building up a picture of you, can I opt out?

You have the right to object to the way we use your data if you believe our legitimate interest in doing it is outweighed by your right to privacy. You can do this by contacting us via the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

As this type of analysis is important in enabling Boots Opticians (like all major retailers) to operate efficiently, and we carry it out in a way that doesn’t identify you, this has no impact on your privacy.

Information we get from external companies

From time to time, we may supplement the information we hold about you with data from other commercially available sources, like the electoral roll and companies such as Experian and Sagacity that collate and update data. This helps us keep our records up to date and learn more about our customers so we can continue to improve our products and services to them. We only work with organisations that obtain their data legally from publicly available or consent-based sources.

Occasionally, for marketing purposes, we may obtain lists of potential customers from external companies. We will only deal with reputable companies that take privacy and data protection as seriously as we do and have obtained consent to share this data with us. We will always let you choose not to receive further marketing material from us.

Sharing your data

Sharing with the NHS

We may share information with NHS bodies to fulfil our legal obligations as a provider of optical services, or where we have a duty of care to do so. For example, we may share information to obtain payment for private services we provide and to measure the effectiveness of services we may need to share data – including, but not limited to, the following data:

Name
Address
DOB
Reason for NHS Eligibility
Ethnicity (Wales only for some claim forms)

NHS Trusts (inclusive of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland) will have visibility of a spectacle prescription information if an optical voucher was to be issued.

Specifically in Wales, Boots Opticians customer record cards are sent to the NHS, as the record card acts as a claim form for ‘Low Vision’ WGOS 3 claims.

Sharing your data with the DVLA

Optical patients who are found visually no longer fit to drive are advised to notify the DVLA themselves.

Boots Opticians do not share any optical information to the DVLA. However, if an optometrist is told by a patient that they are continuing to drive despite former optical advice, the optometrist can legally contact the DVLA should they believe that patient to be a risk to the public.

Non-Boots Opticians brands

Boots Companies

Some of our standalone Boots Opticians stores include Boots Hearingcare services, and some of our Boots Opticians stores are situated within a larger Boots store. Each Boots company has its own Privacy Policy which may not be the same as ours, so we advise that you check who is collecting your personal information and how they’ll use it before signing up to receive offers or information.

Third parties that provide services on our behalf

We share your personal information with third parties that provide services on our behalf. We always ensure these third parties give your information the same level of care and security we do.

Third party companies that we work with include, but are not limited to, the following:

Adaro – Contact Lens provider
ATM – Customer Contact Centre
BBGR – Glasses frame provider
Klarna – Credit and payment services
Ocuco – Practice Management System (PMS) provider
Reputation – Platform for customer satisfaction surveys
WorldPay – Payment processor
Sagacity – Data cleansing provider
Paragon – Printing company for direct mail

For a comprehensive list of these third parties, please submit a request to the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.

Sharing data outside of the UK

Some of the third parties that we use may have data centres that are situated inside and/or outside the EEA (European Economic Area). If your information is to be sent outside of the UK or EEA, we make sure it will be subject to standards of protection and security that are as high as those Boots uses here in the UK.

Can I object to having my data shared?

As your data is stored safely and securely both inside and outside of the EEA, we cannot offer an alternative storage solution if you wish to object to having your data stored outside of the EEA. However, you can stop further data sharing by ceasing services with Boots Opticians, such as removing membership subscriptions (e.g. Contact Lens Reward Plan membership).

We will always conduct a full review of our suppliers’ processes and procedures including storage solutions for our data. To ensure adequate protection when sending your data outside of the UK and EEA, we put in place contracts based on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), the UK International Data Transfer Agreement and the UK Addendum to the SCCs as required.

Keeping in touch

When you book an optical appointment online, a basic customer record will be created in readiness for your appointment visit in store.

When you then attend your appointment in store, a store colleague will have an in-person conversation to you about your consent and communication channel preferences. This is where you will set your level of consent to service and/or marketing communications, and by which method (email and/or phone and/or letter and/or SMS).

Some of our marketing selection processes are fully automated so that we can ensure we’re selecting offers, products, and services that are the most relevant for each customer. To do this, we use data that we’ve obtained from your history with us, such as number of appointments, or what brands or products you like to purchase.

From time to time, we may contact you with special offers on behalf of brands we stock, but we will never sell or share your data with those brands for them to use in their own marketing preferences. You can also click on the link at the bottom of any email we’ve sent you to opt out of email marketing.

Please be aware that as our marketing campaigns are prepared well in advance, you may still receive material by post for up to two months, and by e-mail or text for up to 28 days after updating your preferences.

Can I opt out of marketing?

Yes, you can change your mind about receiving marketing material from us at any time by actioning any of the following:

Visiting your local Boots Opticians and speaking to a member of the store team.
Calling the Boots Opticians call centre and speaking to a member of the team.
Clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any marketing emails you receive.

Customer feedback surveys and market research

Where you have used a Boots Opticians service, we may invite you to give feedback on the services you have used. Although the invitation may be sent to you by third party agencies on our behalf, rest assured that we only send your contact details. We will only send these once each time you have attended a service in your local Boots Opticians store.

Boots Opticians will only ever share your data with reputable agencies in a safe and secure manner. All personal data will be deleted in line with our retention policies and schedules. Keeping your data safe is our top priority.

Can I opt out of market research?

Yes, you’ll always be able to decline to take part in research activities, and you can opt out of these types of communications from Boots Opticians. You can do this by following the unsubscribe link in any of our communications.

A list of cookies we use

From time to time we may make changes to the cookies we use as we add or remove features from our website.

See a full list of cookies that we use on this site.

Amending Cookie preferences

Amend your cookie settings

Your privacy and shared computers

If you are visiting bootsopticians.com from a shared computer, such as in an internet cafe or from a colleague’s computer at work, Cookies may cause any items you have added to your wishlist to display to anyone who uses the site on that computer after you. You can avoid this by clearing the Cookies stored by the web browser. The option to do this is normally in the ‘Tools’ dropdown menu at the top of the browser window.

Boots Advantage Card scheme

If you have a Boots Advantage Card (either physical or digital) we can add your card to your Boots Opticians customer record, so that each time you pay for product or service within your local Boots Opticians, you will have points added.

For any accessories your purchase, you will earn 3 points per £1.

For any other paid product or service, you will earn 1 point per £1.

Please be aware that you cannot spend any advantage card points on any Boots Opticians service.

Full terms and conditions for Boots Advantage Card

Boots Opticians Services

As an optical healthcare provider, we’re regulated by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the General Optical Council (GOC), both of which set out standards and codes of practice with which we need to comply. Where we provide NHS services in our Boots Opticians practices, we also have to comply with NHS Information Governance requirements.

Information we get from the NHS: your Summary Care Record

Boots Opticians may refer patients for treatment via secure NHS emails or platforms commissioned and approved by the NHS.

Medical History

Any medical conditions (such as diabetes, glaucoma, or cataract operations) and relevant medications recorded in your eye exam will form part of your sight test record.

If an emergency situation arises, a GOC registrant will refer you to the appropriate channel (e.g. monitoring you in-store, referring you to eye casualty etc).

Prescription detail

We do not use information about your prescriptions for marketing, although we may use the fact that we know you have attended an Opticians to let you know about other services we provide that might be useful and relevant to you.

For example, when you attend an eye test or contact lens check, a Boots Optometrist may ask if you’d like to take advantage of similar services that may be relevant and useful to you.

These services are optional, but if you choose to use them, we will need to ask you some health-related questions in order to fulfil our contractual obligations with the NHS. The information you give us will only be shared with the relevant NHS bodies and we won’t use it for any other purpose.

Or, provided you have consented to service and/or marketing communication, we may contact you via letter, email, SMS, and/or WhatsApp (depending on your preferred methods) to let you know about other optical services or offers and discounts that we think are relevant to you.

Staying in control of your information: Your rights

We respect the fact that your personal information is your information, and we will make it easy for you to update or change your personal details or marketing permissions. Please help us to help you by letting us know if your contact details change, or if you spot any errors in the information we hold about you.

What information am I entitled to?

Your data rights are explained below, all of which are normally free of charge and should be concluded within a 30-day time frame. We may require you to provide identification in order to fulfil your request.

Your data right	Detail of right
Access	You have a to right to obtain a copy of all the information that Boots Opticians holds about you, such as personal details, correspondence, marketing preferences, consent information, complaints, queries and Advantage Card history.
Portability	You can request that Boots Opticians moves your data to another service provider. This is not an automatic right; this depends on the type of data that Boots holds about you, and the reason Boots Opticians process the data.
Processing	You have a right to request that Boots Opticians stop certain data processing activities that involve your personal data. This isn’t an automatic right, what Boots Opticians are able to do will depend on the type of data that Boots Opticians hold about you and why.
Deletion	You have a right to request that Boots Opticians deletes your personal data it holds. This isn’t an automatic right, what Boots Opticians are able to delete will depend on the type of data and the reason for processing.
CCTV	In our stores, we use video and, in some places, audio recording to prevent and detect crime and anti-social behaviour. Where we do this, we display clear signage, comply with the Information Commissioner’s Surveillance Camera Code of Conduct, and have internal processes in place to minimise the impact on your privacy. If you require access to CCTV footage, we will ask for the date and approximate time of the incident you wish to view and as much detail as you can to help us locate the correct footage. CCTV is normally held for a 30-day period. We will do our best to help, but there may be situations in which we may be unable to make CCTV footage available to you, such as where the incident occurred some time ago or if we believe that allowing you to view it would breach someone else’s privacy. Technologies associated with our CCTV systems will be used for the purpose of collecting non-identifiable analytical data, e.g. to understand how long our customers wait in queues when making a purchase or using services within our stores. You cannot be identified by the use of these technologies.
Social media	If you raise a query or a complaint through Boots Opticians’ social media pages, we will have a record of your username. This is used only to enable us to correspond with you and resolve the matter you’ve raised.

Contact Us

If you have any queries or concerns about the contents of this policy, or if you wish to exercise your individual data rights, please contact us using one of the below methods:

Phone: 0345 125 3752 (Monday-Friday: 08:30-18:30, Saturday: 08:45-17:00, Sunday: 10:00-17:00)
Email:
General enquiries: boots.customercare@boots.co.uk
Contact Lens Reward Plan enquiries: contactlenses@boots-opticians.co.uk
Post: Boots Opticians Customer Care, D90 EF05, Thane Road, Nottinghamshire, NG90 1BS

Your right to complain in the ICO

Although we hope it never comes to this, you do have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or the Office of the Data Protection Authority (ODPA Guernsey) about any of Boots Opticians processing activities.

Please see contact options for the ICO below:

Email: casework@ico.org.uk
Phone: 0303 123 1113
Address: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Please see contact options for the ODPA Guernsey below:

Email: info@odpa.gg
Phone: 01481 742074
Address: Block A, Lefebvre Court, Lefebvre Street, St Peter Port, GY1 2JP

Changes to our business

If ownership of all or part of our business changes, or we undergo a reorganisation (including a merger or transfer between The Boots Group companies), we will transfer your personal information to the new owner or successor company, so we can continue to provide the services.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was updated in January 2026 by Boots Opticians. We may update it from time to time, so we recommend that you check back here occasionally. If we make changes that we think may affect you significantly (particularly if they could have an impact on your choices or your marketing preferences) we will provide you with prominent notice.