Data and statistics
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Summary report: Sex and the Data Bill – beware of building digital identities on sand
The government’s new trust framework for digital verification services has a critical flaw: government data itself is not trustworthy when it comes to the core personal characteristic of sex. Read the full report online.Read the full report as a PDF.
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The government’s Data Bill: sleepwalking into self-ID?
The first day of the committee stage of Parliamentary scrutiny in the House of Lords on the government’s Data (Use and Access) Bill was on 3rd December 2024. Several peers moved and supported amendments to address the problem with unreliable sex data that Sex Matters has been raising. The...
5th December 2024
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There’s still a fatal flaw in the government’s digital trust framework
The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes last week published the latest version of the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework (0.4). But it has still not recognised the problem of inaccurate sex data provided by the public authorities that underpin the system. The trust framework is a...
2nd December 2024
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A new scandal on the horizon?
Yesterday the Data (Use and Access) Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords. Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, parliamentary hero of the Post Office scandal, mentioned our report Sex and the Data Bill: beware of building digital identities on sand after talking about how people’s lives were...
20th November 2024
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Sex and the Data Bill – briefing for Parliamentarians
The second reading of the Data (Use and Access) Bill in the House of Lords is on Tuesday 19th November 2024. This two-page briefing gives a brief analysis of a problem with the government’s data verification services framework, the results this might cause, and our proposed solution. Large-print version...
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Sex and the Data Bill
The government's new trust framework for digital verification services has a critical flaw: government data itself is not trustworthy when it comes to the core personal characteristic of sex.
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The Data Bill will fail if the government can’t be clear about sex
The Data Use and Access Bill is being debated in the House of Lords on Tuesday 19th November. The government promises that it will boost the UK economy by £10 billion across 10 years and free up millions of staff hours in the police and NHS, saving hundreds of...
18th November 2024
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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...
25th October 2024
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Does sex matter at the BBC?
The national broadcaster’s mission is to provide “impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”. It is obliged by its charter to be accurate and impartial. Accuracy is something you might expect of any news medium, but the BBC has constant pressure to ensure that...
25th July 2024
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New poll finds voters want to make the Equality Act clear
As reported in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express and Sun today, voters across the political spectrum are more supportive of making the Equality Act clear than making it easier for people to change their birth certificates. Sex Matters commissioned a representative survey from an independent polling company to find...
1st July 2024
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Briefing on new poll on sex and gender
The law on sex and gender: what policies do the public want? Results of Sex Matters poll.
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Why do people think “transgender rights” have gone too far?
It’s not just about self-ID Support for the law that allows people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate has fallen a long way over the past few years, most sharply when self-ID was being proposed, in 2018–19 in the UK and then again in 2021–22 in...
14th June 2024
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Another fall in public support for changing sex on birth certificates
The latest results from the annual British Social Attitudes survey show a further fall in support for the law that allows people to change the sex recorded on their birth certificate. It seems that the more this is talked about, the less people like it. Each year the British...
12th June 2024
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Despite the election, you should still respond to consultations
You can still make a difference by responding: here’s how.
7th June 2024
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Gender-distressed youth and suicide risk – factsheet
The possibility of suicide can be a concern for parents with a child experiencing distress about their sex, and for the professionals working with that family, as well as for officials and politicians setting policy. This factsheet summarises research and addresses myths, misunderstandings and scaremongering.
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Getting “sex” right in digital verification services
The UK government is developing a system for digital verification services (DVSs). The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill which is now at committee stage in the House of Lords is establishing the legal framework for this. The legislation will lead to the development of a “digital identity and...
17th April 2024
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Digital verification services
– how the government can solve the problem about sex (or else sleepwalk into chaos)
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How gender ideology broke the census
The 2021 census of England and Wales reportedly cost £900m. Amid much fanfare, data on the transgender population was collected for the first time. But the exercise seems to have gone wrong. The question on gender identity may have been misunderstood, giving strange results. The Guardian reported: “The proportion...
5th April 2024
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Bias at the BBC
What’s the issue? The BBC’s director of complaints has ruled that the presenter Justin Webb broke the BBC’s rules on impartiality when he commented, in a discussion about a women’s chess tournament on Radio 4’s Today programme, that “trans women” are male. This is shocking behaviour from the BBC:...
1st March 2024
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Response to the Financial Conduct Authority’s consultation on Diversity and Inclusion
The response from SEEN in the City to the FCA’s proposals (CP23/20) raises serious concerns – particularly that there is no requirement for firms to collect sex data.
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An Epic crisis is unfolding in the NHS
Since October, several NHS trusts in England have been using new £450 million NHS patient-data software produced by US-based IT company Epic Systems. This has been programmed by local teams to record the “gender identity” of babies. For adults, the system has been programmed to register patients according to...
29th November 2023
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Putting remembrance in context
Today, 20th November, is Trans Day of Remembrance, which has been marked annually since 2011 and is intended to commemorate the deaths of trans-identified people caused by transphobia. It has rapidly become a fixture in transactivists’ campaigning calendar. Unevidenced claims about the outsize risks faced by trans people, the...
20th November 2023
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The ONS should admit its gender-identity question failed
The Office for National Statistics has released the final summary of its investigations into the quality of the England and Wales census data from the “gender identity” question. A clear assessment of the quality of the data is important, both because the data will be used to drive understanding,...
8th November 2023
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Response to ONS consultation on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales
We call on the Office for National Statistics to make sure that data on sex is collected clearly and accurately for national statistics.
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Data matters
The easiest way to ask about sex is to ask a simple question and expect a straightforward answer.
19th October 2023
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Data matters
Advice on the questions you should ask when collecting personal data on sex and transgender identity. See also our template letter of complaint to send when you are concerned that an organisation is misusing your data by confusing sex and gender.
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Data protection complaint template letter
A template letter of complaint to send when you are concerned that an organisation is misusing your data by confusing sex and gender.
For guidance on collecting personal data on sex and gender identity, see our publication Data matters (and send a copy along with the letter). -
Sex matters in data collection webinar
On 24th October 2023, Sex Matters’ director of advocacy, Helen Joyce, talked with sociologists Michael Biggs and Lucinda Platt about the rights and wrongs of data collection, when it comes to sex and gender identity. Maya Forstater, executive director of Sex Matters introduced a new Sex Matters publication that sets...
17th October 2023
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‘Nonsense’ of gender data collected by public bodies set for review
Ben Riley-SMith, political editor for The Telegraph
The Tories are hardening their position on the importance of biological sex being recognised amid the debate about transgender rights. -
Census ‘hugely overstated’ trans population
Edward Malnick, Sunday Political Editor for The Telegraph
Office for National Statistics may have lost its 'credibility' to accurately record sex and gender, suggests Whitehall source -
Clarity matters: how placating lobbyists obscures public understanding of sex and gender
MBM commissioned polling to see what people understand by the terms “transgender woman” and “trans man” tell them about a person’s sex. The findings show that there is substantial confusion.
