Digital identity verification can end the gender wars
The government has unveiled its new Data Bill, which it says will unlock the power of data to grow the economy and improve people’s lives. The bill proposes new rules to support digital identity verification, which will make it easier for people to prove who they are when doing things like renting a flat, applying for a job or getting financial services. It will mean more QR codes and single logins, and less having to show documents such as electricity bills, bank statements and drivers’ licences.
Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, says:
“Digital identity tools save people time and give businesses reliable ways to confirm people are who they say they are. It is crucial that we ensure these tools are secure, preserve people’s privacy and work for everyone – and this is what the Data Bill looks to achieve.”
Digital identity systems could also solve the “gender wars”; addressing both the needs of those those concerned with safeguarding, science, sport and safety, on the one hand, and people who wish to express their inner sense of “gender identity” (whatever this means to them in their private life) on the other. They could do this by enabling everyone to verify accurately whether they are male or female whenever their sex matters, and to keep that information private when it doesn’t (such as when verifying their age or other fact about them).
Development started under the previous government, and is now well under way. This is not a national ID-card system, but rather a means to ensure that digital identity information is standardised and trustworthy so that everyone can prove who they are, and relevant facts about themselves (called “attributes“), without presenting physical documents.
Currently, NHS records and government documents such as passports and driving licences do not record sex accurately, since people can change the data that is recorded with a simple request. None of these agencies know how many people have changed the information on their official documents, nor can they tell you for any individual (even with their consent) whether the data they hold is their actual sex. The census suggests that as many as 100,000 people may have changed the sex recorded on some of their documents.
We do know that over 8,000 people have changed the sex recorded in their tax and benefits records by obtaining a gender-recognition certificate (GRC). This also allows them to obtain a replica birth certificate which makes it look like they were born as the opposite sex. A GRC costs £5, and no surgery or other medical treatment is required.
This information chaos is dangerous. It means radiographers now have to ask men if they might be pregnant before doing an X-ray. It can lead to medical misdiagnosis and people being given the wrong dosage of medicines. It undermines the integrity of data used for research. It makes disclosure and barring service (DBS) checks unreliable, and allows sex offenders to hide their identity. It is why services such as care agencies and rape-crisis centres cannot straightforwardly answer questions about whether staff members are male or female, in situations where clients have every right to know the answer. It makes it near-impossible for lesbian dating sites to exclude men who identify as lesbians, and it terrifies and confuses service providers, from gyms to pubs to youth hostels, about whether and how they can communicate and enforce sex-based rules.
When government bodies and lawmakers decided to allow individuals to change the sex recorded in government systems, they didn’t think of any of this. They thought they were simply accommodating a tiny number of people, not that they were making those systems unworkable for everyone.
But falsifying official records does profound harm to the integrity of entire systems. Since all identity records marked “M” or “F” may relate to a member of the opposite sex, it means no-one can verify their sex with complete certainty.
This is now a critical problem for the digital identity system. But it is one that this government can solve.
The solution is to ensure that the data standard underpinning the system makes clear that “sex” means actual sex. This will mean disallowing any unreliable source of information for this field, including drivers’ licences, passports, current NHS records and paper birth certificates. Among the sources that remain reliable are original birth records, any record that is clearly linked to sex (such as an accurate medical record) or – for athletes – the results of a simple cheek-swab test.
The Data Bill will enable the creation of an electronic register of births and deaths. This gives the system a reliable bedrock. Digital identity services can “ping” the birth register for trusted verification if someone consents to sharing data on their sex. If a transgender person (or indeed anyone) does not want to share information about their sex where it is not needed, they don’t have to. Such privacy over personal information is how many other systems work already – for example, QR codes can be used by people to prove that they are over 18, or that they have clearance to enter a particular building, without revealing any other information at all.
The government promises that digital identities will save billions of pounds, since they will mean that police officers, NHS staff and workers in the private sector will no longer have to manually log personal data, and will be able to check and share records simply and accurately. Just in the NHS, they promise to free up 140,000 hours in staff time every year, providing quicker care for patients and potentially saving lives. For this to happen, the government will require IT suppliers in the health and care sector to ensure their systems meet common standards to enable data-sharing across platforms.
All of these systems must record sex clearly and accurately. Anything else will make the entire system unreliable, untrustworthy and a source of risk and conflict for years to come.
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Edited for clarity on 26/10/24