We used to show an athlete’s date of birth on Power of 10 unless you informed us that you did not wish for it to be shown.

We typically obtain date of birth information from the sport's registration schemes in the UK and/or if you or somebody that knows you have previously informed us.

Dates of birth allows us to determine an athlete's age group not only on the day of a race but indeed on any date. It helps to distinguish between athletes of the same or similar names when attributing performances to athletes. It also helps to give credibility to our rankings in that a performance for an athlete with a known date of birth is more likely to be bona fide.

Dates of birth are used by many other sports, websites and publications in the pursuit of accuracy. Entry systems for many events in our sport require date of birth. It is an essential tool in order for us to offer an accurate and up to date service and that inclusion is part of the service we provide to the sport.

We did not, however, publish date of birth information for any athlete aged 12 or under, in line with The Information Commissioner's Office ("ICO") guidance on the Data Protection Act 1998.

That all said we were getting quite a few questions on the lines of understanding that whilst we did need to know dates of birth for the above reasons, did we actually need to show them freely to everybody even with the option to have your one removed from display. So, given this concern and the fact that sports like swimming have recently done the same, we have decided to remove from display in general.

If you suspect that we may not have your date of birth and/or it is incorrect because say your age group comes up incorrectly please email us your name, club (if applicable), registration number (if known) and date of birth and we will let you know if we have noted it correctly and/or update our records accordingly. You can also provide this information if an envelope appears against you on a ranking list or results page.

Please be assured that data protection is an issue that we are concerned about and are registered (ref. PZ9385754 ) for the purposes of providing a service to the sport in listing the achievements of athletes in the UK across all forms of the sport and whatever age.