But the draft code includes a new section on asking about sex (towards the end of Chapter 13) that is wrong about the law. This section should never have been laid before Parliament and it should be disregarded. We will be writing to the Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, and to the chair of the EHRC, Mary-Ann Stephenson, calling for this section to be withdrawn. 

It appears to have been added at the last minute following feedback from the government Office for Equality and Opportunity (OEO) insisting that there are “limited circumstances in which it may be legitimate for service providers to ask about a service user’s sex” and stressing the importance of training staff on the relevant procedures and protocols. 

In an “additional impact assessment”, the OEO expressed particular concern that asking people what sex they are will result in “involuntary disclosure” that they are trans. This perspective can be understood only through the lens of transactivism, which imagines that people recognise others as men or women based on “gender identity”, while a person’s sex is deeply private. It says:

“New guidance explains how service providers can request information about an individual’s sex at birth. This may force trans people to “out” themselves in public or professional settings. Similarly trans people have expressed concern – as in the Good Law Project litigation against EHRC – that having to use disabled toilets will ‘out’ them.”

This directly contradicts both reality and the Supreme Court’s clear interpretation of the law. The Supreme Court recognised that knowing whether someone is male or female is generally straightforward, while “there is no obvious outward means of distinguishing between a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who has a GRC and a person with that characteristic who does not”, or indeed between a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment and any other member of their sex, since this protected characteristic does not “require any physiological change or even any change in outward appearance”.

The new guidance claims that information on sex is, or should be treated as, “special category” data: 

“13.175 Information about sex is sensitive and should be treated as special category personal data.” 

and

“13.182 Information about sex is likely to constitute special category data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).”

Special-category data is personal data that attracts extra protection in law. It includes information on individuals’ health, philosophical beliefs, sex life and sexual orientation. It is covered under Article 9 of the UK GDPR. The idea that sex is special-category data has been advanced by the Good Law Project. (See our previous blogpost about sport and special-category data.)

If sex was special-category data, it would come under stricter data security requirements that would impose a duty of accountability on service providers and their staff and contractual partners. Mishandling such data can lead to serious breaches of privacy and significant legal penalties. When a business discovers that it has been subject to a data breach, it is required to notify data-protection authorities within 72 hours and also to notify the data subject. 

It is simply outside the EHRC’s mandate to issue guidance about data protection, and doing so at the government’s insistence undermines the EHRC’s statutory independence. This advice in any case is wrong. And it undermines the rest of the guidance, recreating the problem which the For Women Scotland judgment solved and harming women’s rights. 

1. The section is outside the EHRC’s mandate

The EHRC code of practice is issued under the Equality Act 2006, which allows the commission to issue a “code of practice in connection with any matter addressed by the Equality Act 2010”. It requires that the code is designed to ensure or facilitate compliance with the act or an enactment made under that act, and to promote equality of opportunity.

The section on asking about sex goes well beyond this mandate. There are no specific provisions on asking about sex in the Equality Act. The correct regulator to produce guidance on data protection is the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

2. The section is wrong about data-protection law

It is true that sex is personal information and that data-protection legislation can apply. But it is wrong to say that it is sensitive or special-category data. Article 9 (1) UK GDPR defines special categories of personal data as being personal data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union membership, genetic data, biometric data and data concerning health or a person’s sex life or sexual orientation. It does not include sex.

The Information Commissioner has said that information about someone’s “gender identity” might be special-category data, depending on the circumstances:

“For example if the information also reveals specific details about the person’s health status or medical care, or an organisation uses it to make specific inferences about health.”

The Information Commissioner goes on to say:

“If there’s no specific information or inference about someone’s health (or any other specific category such as sexual orientation or sex life), it isn’t special category data.”

Sex (whether someone is a man/male or a woman/female) simply isn’t special-category data. And data on a person’s sex simply doesn’t reveal whether they identify as trans. 

Sex is ordinary personal data that can be used routinely (similarly to other personal information such as a person’s name or age). In any case purely oral information – such as the reply to a question about whether someone is a man or woman in order to direct them to the correct facilities – would not come under data protection at all. As the judge said in the case of Scott v LGBT Foundation about oral information:

“That is not what the DPA is concerned with: it is a very specific scheme based around records and processing. There are other areas of law (in particular, the law of confidentiality) which are the appropriate vehicle for making such complaints if they are well-founded.”

3. The section incorrectly requires a spurious human-rights balancing test

Paragraph 13.161 says:

“Personal data includes information about a person’s sex which may also be protected under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In particular, it is important to be aware that some people, including some trans or gender non-conforming people, may wish to keep such information private as far as possible and may find it distressing to be asked about their sex.”

As Supreme Court judge Lord Reed explains in a recent helpful speech on proportionality: 

“The UK has what is sometimes called a “dualist” system, which means that international and domestic law operate on different planes. Treaties such as the Convention are binding on the UK on the international plane, but they do not form part of the law of the UK unless Parliament passes legislation to implement them. This is a necessary corollary of Parliamentary sovereignty.” 

As Lord Reed says, domestic law continues to be the first port of call for anyone whose rights have been infringed. UK GDPR is the primary domestic legislation that codifies and enforces the fundamental right to data protection, which stems from Article 8. 

Individual service providers are not required to go beyond data-protection law and treat oral information or data on sex as special-category data, or to undertake human-rights analysis before processing information in line with GDPR or DPA.

The claim that asking for information on a person’s sex is a breach of Article 8 is widely made by transactivists, as on the TransLucent “Article 8 carry card”. 

The Article 8 argument was also used by the government unsuccessfully to try to defend the Office for National Statistics’ decision, in the run-up to the most recent census, to direct people to answer the sex question according to their preferred sex rather than their actual sex. This decision was overturned in court after a challenge brought by women’s-rights activists.

It is neither necessary nor possible to consider the unknowable mental state of individuals before collecting or acting on routine information. Although it may be true that some people find it distressing to be asked about their sex, a service provider cannot know or guess which people they will be (and the information that an individual suffers from such feelings is in itself sensitive). 

If a person wants to keep a piece of personal information private in any given situation, whether because of feelings of distress or other reasons, they can “prefer not to say”. However, refusal to give information or to allow it to be recorded where it is needed may mean the person is unable to access a service. This is not a breach of Article 8, any more than it is a disproportionate breach of privacy to require a person to confirm they are over 18 to buy alcohol, or to explain the basis on which they have parental responsibility to enrol a child in school and then to recognise that relationship (as a father or mother) in daily interactions with that school and others with a duty of care in relation to that child.

4. The section undermines safeguarding

An organisation that follows the guidance and treats sex as “special category” data will need to apply this to everyone.

But sex is often relevant for everyday life, formal and informal risk assessment, duty of care and safeguarding, as well as for decisions concerning consent and propriety. Sex forms the basis of many ordinary interpersonal relationships, in particular sexual relationships and parenthood. 

Creating an environment where people are expected to treat sex as sensitive “special category” data, to pretend they don’t know what sex other people are, to believe that it is reasonable for people to be offended if asked to confirm their sex and to assume that any individual might not be the sex they appear to be makes it impossible to enforce sex-based rules and creates an environment where ordinary safety and safeguarding are compromised. 

It forces people to pretend they don’t know what a man and a woman look like, that men are statistically more likely to undertake violent or predatory behaviour and that women are the targets for specific types of male violence. Neither the Equality Act nor UK GDPR requires this kind of wilful stupidity. 

A man who has gained access to a female-only space is not simply a man within the ordinary male risk profile: he is a man who demonstrably possesses the additional risk factor of not respecting rules that exist to protect women. What is relevant is his sex: the fact that he is a man. The fact that he may be trans, non-binary, gender fluid, gender non-conforming or suffering from gender dysphoria is irrelevant (and may well be sensitive information). 

Recording such factors or specific concerns would involve much greater processing of personal information than simply asking people to confirm their sex or to leave the space if they do not wish to, without processing any personal data.

5. This section is likely to cause unlawful harassment related to sex

The guidance extrapolates from its misunderstanding of Article 8 and UK GDPR to suggest that service providers and their staff must ask themselves several complex questions before deciding that it is proportionate to challenge a man in a women’s facility and ask him to leave. After thus tying itself up in knots, it warns (at 13.170): 

“It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service.” 

There is no legal basis for this instruction, which in effect licenses men to enter women’s facilities and claim that it is inappropriate, possibly unlawful and a breach of their human rights to challenge them. 

Telling staff supervising single-sex spaces that they must second-guess themselves when they become aware of a man engaging in the deviant behaviour of accessing a female-only space, or risk breaching data-protection law, will lead to unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristic of sex that is likely to meet the definition of harassment in the Equality Act. It “violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment”.

Section 111 of the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to instruct, cause, or induce another person to commit an act of discrimination, harassment, or victimisation. For the past 15 years men with the inappropriate desire to use women’s spaces have cited legally incorrect advice previously given by the EHRC, which was inserted in the now-superseded 2011 version of the code of practice after consultation with transactivist groups.

It is utterly insulting, and could well be an act of inducement of mass harassment against every woman in Britain, that the OEO has pressured the EHRC to insert a misstatement of the law into its new guidance that will lead to service providers wrongly viewing sex as “special category data” and making it difficult to challenge and remove men from women’s changing rooms and toilets.

The post Sex is not “special category” data appeared first on Sex Matters.

Nothing in the code of practice changes the Equality Act 2010. What it does is provide detailed, practical guidance on how to interpret the act. It also removes the excuse of “waiting for guidance”.

Duty bearers that have been using this excuse for inaction, or telling themselves that their policies based on gender self-ID “remain lawful”, are acting irresponsibly and taking significant risk. 

The previous version, published in 2011, was ambiguous about the relationship between the protected characteristics of sex and gender. It said: 

“If a service provider provides single- or separate sex services for women and men, or provides services differently to women and men, they should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present.”

It told service providers to operate based on gender self-ID and that they could exclude transgender individuals from services provided for members of the opposite sex only on a “case-by-case” basis. This ignored other people’s rights, was unworkable for service providers and, as the Supreme Court made clear in 2025, was wrong in law.

The new code of practice has removed that error and provided much more detail on the single-sex and separate-sex exceptions in order to counter confusion and misinformation 

The new guidance says clearly (emphasis added): 

13.130 If a service provider (or a person providing a service in the exercise of public functions) admits trans people to a service intended for the opposite sex, then it can no longer rely on the [single and separate sex exceptions]. This means that if a service is provided only to women and trans women or only to men and trans men, it is not a separate-sex or single-sex service under the Equality Act 2010. 

13.131 A service like this is very likely to amount to unlawful sex discrimination against the people of the opposite sex who are not allowed to use it. A service which is provided to women and trans women could also be unlawful sex discrimination or lead to unlawful harassment against women who use the service. Similar considerations would apply to a service provided for men and trans men. 

It is possible to offer a mixed-sex service alongside a single-sex service. A mixed-sex service must be open to all service users.

There is a lot of detail in chapter 13 on the exceptions. But in most situations providing a single-sex or separate-sex service is going to be simple and straightforward, as the EHRC has already said in its interim update.

In order to understand the exceptions in the Equality Act, duty bearers need to understand how the act works. The code of practice explains this.

The protected characteristics

The guidance begins by defining the nine protected characteristics, including sex and gender reassignment. 

“Sex” means being male or female. The comparator in a sex-discrimination claim is someone of the opposite sex. 

“Gender reassignment” is a broad characteristic which covers someone who is at any stage of a personal transition journey, defined as “proposing to undergo, undergoing, or having undergone a process to reassign sex”. It is a protected characteristic separate from sex or sexual orientation. Having this characteristic does not change a person’s sex. 

A trans person is protected from sex discrimination based on their sex at birth, and also from sex discrimination related to their “acquired gender” (for example through association or perceived sex). 

Unlawful acts

The guidance then explains the familiar Equality Act framework of unlawful acts:

• Direct discrimination: occurs when a person is treated less favourably because of a protected characteristic. It is generally unlawful, unless an express exception can be relied on. This means that providing a single-sex or separate-sex service is likely to be unlawful direct discrimination, unless one of the exceptions in the Equality Act applies.
• Indirect discrimination: occurs when an apparently neutral provision, criterion, or practice puts people sharing a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage. It is not unlawful if it is a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”.
  
  • The aim must be legal, non-discriminatory, and a “real, objective consideration” (for example, ensuring health and safety, wellbeing or dignity). Reducing costs alone is not a sufficient aim.
  • The means must be proportionate, meaning the disadvantages caused must not be disproportionate to the aims pursued.
• Harassment: involves unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic (including age, disability, gender reassignment, race and sex) that violates an individual’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.
  
  • The effect of the conduct is sufficient to establish unlawful harassment, regardless of intent.
  • In deciding if conduct is harassment, courts consider the individual’s perception, circumstances and whether the effect is objectively reasonable (that is, not based on hypersensitivity).
  • The other person’s right to freedom of thought, religion and speech must also be considered.
• Victimisation: subjecting a person to detriment because they have done a “protected act”, such as bringing proceedings under the act or making an allegation of a breach.

Duty bearers 

The code of practice relates to the part of that act that covers providers of services (such as local authorities, hospitals and shops), those exercising public functions (such as law enforcement and licensing) and associations (with 25 or more members and regulated admission).

Exceptions

The new code of practice includes detailed guidance on the Equality Act’s exceptions, which permit otherwise unlawful discrimination. 

• Positive action: it is lawful for service providers and public authorities to to take proportionate action to overcome or minimise disadvantages, meet different needs, or encourage participation for people who share a protected characteristic.
• Charities: it is lawful for charities to provide benefits exclusively to people sharing a protected characteristic if it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim, or for the purpose of preventing or compensating for a disadvantage.
• Competitive sport: it is lawful to organise single-sex or separate-sex events where an average person of one sex would be at a disadvantage due to physical strength, stamina or physique.
  
  • Sex-based rules should be applied on the basis of biological sex:

13.69 Arrangements relating to participation in a gender-affected activity which do not enable fair and safe competition between men and women may amount to unlawful sex discrimination against competitors of either sex, if they are placed at a disadvantage because of those arrangements.

…

13.73 Any sex-based rules or arrangements relating to participation in a gender-affected activity (read paragraph 13.65) should be applied on the basis of biological sex. Therefore, trans people should not be included in single-sex or separate-sex competitions for the sex with which they identify….

• Trans people can be excluded or treated differently from members of their own sex if necessary for fair competition or safety. Organisers should consider alternative arrangements, such as mixed-sex categories, to enable trans people to participate.
• Separate services for women and men: it is lawful to provide separate services or facilities for women and men if a joint service would be less effective and providing the service separately is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
• Single-sex services: it is lawful to provide a service exclusively to one sex if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and one of six conditions applies (for example, that only one sex needs the service; that a woman might reasonably object to the presence of a man due to undressing or being in a vulnerable situation; or that physical contact is involved).
• Proportionality considerations: a legitimate aim for single-sex provision includes ensuring the safety, privacy and dignity of women, men or both.
  
  • The service provider must balance the benefits of the single-sex service (such as reduced risk to women in contexts of undress or male violence) against the needs of all potential users and the impact on those excluded, including trans people.
  • If a service provider allows trans people to use a service intended for the opposite sex, it is no longer a single-sex service under the act and is very likely to be unlawful sex discrimination against others.
  • If a single-sex service is justified, preventing, limiting or modifying a trans person’s access to the service for their own sex is lawful only if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, such as preventing discomfort or distress for other service users. “Service providers should consider whether other service users could reasonably object because they are worried about sharing a single or separate-sex service with someone who appears to be of the opposite sex.” (13.147)
• Communal accommodation: exclusion based on sex or on gender reassignment is lawful only if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and the accommodation is managed in a way that is as fair as possible to both men and women.

Importantly, the EHRC explicitly states that if a women-only service admits “trans women” (trans-identifying men), it may cease to qualify legally as a single-sex service under the Equality Act. That is a major clarification. For years, many organisations assumed they could remain “women-only” while also operating on the basis of gender identity. The guidance says that this will undermine reliance on the act’s single-sex exceptions (see paragraph 13.130 above).

Considering women’s needs

The guidance explicitly recognises that women may reasonably object to the presence of males in contexts involving undressing, trauma recovery or intimate services. The guidance treats those concerns as legitimate factors in the proportionality assessment about whether to provide a single-sex service. 

13.107 …It is likely to be reasonable for a woman to object to the presence of a man if she will be getting undressed or in a vulnerable situation when she is using the service. 

It makes clear that if a service provider decides to provide a service only on a mixed-sex basis, in situations where women are likely to be in a state of undress; where there will be limited ability to leave or to choose an alternative service; where the service is provided a result of or connected with male violence against women; or where the physical differences between men and women are relevant to the experience of the service and put women at a particular disadvantage, this could be direct or indirect sex discrimination against women who use the service or lead to unlawful harassment against them. 

Considering trans people’s needs

The guidance makes clear that it would be direct gender-reassignment discrimination to restrict access by trans people to services provided to people of their birth sex or people of both sexes. However, in relation to single-sex and separate-sex services and sports, this may be lawful. 

For universally necessary services like toilets, it is very unlikely to be proportionate to leave a trans person with no service they are allowed to use.

Service providers are encouraged to consider alternative arrangements, mixed services or additional provision where possible. They are also expected to treat people sensitively and avoid unnecessary humiliation.

Asking about sex

There is a new section concerning asking users about their sex. This section is overcomplicated and contradictory. Although it says that service providers can ask and record what sex people are, it suggests that this is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, rather than a simple matter of observing or recording ordinary personal data in a routine way. 

• Service providers can ask an individual about their sex where this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (such as diversity monitoring, operational reasons or lawful single-sex provision).
• In single-sex services, the primary method for establishing lawful provision is clear communication (such as “signage, promotional materials including online and hard copies and verbal information provided as part of any enrolment, admission or induction process”; 13.167).
• Asking an individual to confirm their sex may be legitimate where there is clear evidence  (based on physique or behaviour, for example) of the opposite sex accessing the service or because other people have complained. 
• Although the code prevaricates and expresses caution about asking a person what sex they are, it concludes that a service provider can ask, and can exclude someone of the wrong sex (13.178).
• The guidance notes that no official UK document reliably proves biological sex, since documents like passports and driving licences can be changed.

Section 13.182 says: 

“Information about sex is likely to constitute special category data for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Processing personal data should be done with regard to that legislation and the constraints of the relevant systems and resources.”

This is wrong in law. 

Article 9(1) of UK GDPR defines special category data as “personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.” It does not include sex. 

22nd May: This post was updated to correct information in the first paragraph about the current status of the code.

The post What is in the new guidance? appeared first on Sex Matters.

It aims to remove bureaucracy and put people more in control of their data by allowing them to prove who they are and to share only the information required to access particular services. But in the consultation launched in March 2026 the government revealed that it was planning to leave sex off digital ID altogether.

The Digital Access to Services Bill will set out the information that the digital ID will contain and how it can be issued, maintained, stored and verified. This is an opportunity to sort out the problem of official data that confuses sex and gender identity, so that anyone can prove their sex easily and be assured that it will be recorded accurately and clearly. 

During the consultation Sex Matters and many concerned individuals told the government that leaving off information about sex was just not good enough. 

As part of our response we produced an equality impact assessment which shows just how bad an idea it is for the government to leave sex out of its plan for digital ID. 

And we have written to Darren Jones MP, chief secretary to the Treasury, asking for a meeting to discuss the proposal to include sex on digital ID.

The post Will the government solve the sex-data problem in this Parliament?  appeared first on Sex Matters.

It’s a difficult one. I imagine supporters of Sex Matters will have very diverse views on the digital ID issue so realistically you have to allow for that. It also makes perfect sense for you to raise the issue to ensure that any new ID scheme reflects biological sex. I was absolutely gobsmacked to learn that people can simply put whatever sex they want to on their passport. I’m sure this will be an evolving issue and as an organisation you are always thoughtful and flexible which is the main thing.

Whatever you think about digital ID, you can use the opportunity of the consultation to tell the government what you think – and to say that sex should be included. You only need to answer two of the questions. It takes about ten minutes. Here is our guidance:

What do people think about the government’s plan on digital identity?

There is a lot of scepticism about and distrust of the proposal. Just over half of respondents were strongly negative about the government’s plan, with only 15 percent strongly positive. Concerns focus on distrust in government IT systems, privacy and security risks, and fear of misuse or scope creep. 

Strongly negative was the most common position:

We are not a “papers please” society and I do not trust the state to keep my data safe. I think they are authoritarian in nature.

I do not want the government or authorities having any more access to my life. I don’t even use a supermarket loyalty card

Most law-abiding citizens have ID already. No need for anything digital. 

We already have multiple forms of ID, why do we need yet another one, and one as unreliable and unstable as a digital version that will no doubt be forced on us as the “be all and end all” ID solution. As countless examples have proved, digital security is not reliable and may be easily hacked and taken over by those with unfriendly intentions. This is absolutely crazy. Why not just leave all our doors unlocked and our passwords written on the walls? Insane.

I have a National insurance number, tax details , NHS number etc. They have my information and this money should be spent on other things. 

I don’t trust Government institutions with my information. I also don’t like being told that something like this is compulsory. I am very concerned for people who do not have or want the devices required for this technology. We already have to do so much “online”. People are already isolated from services.

Government intrusion. Not convinced it is necessary.

It’s a slippery slope! It will become mandatory. 

Around a third of people were somewhat supportive of the proposal or thought that digital ID is inevitable: 

It can be helpful.

I am reasonably relaxed about the idea.

It’s ok, but only if it’s accurate – with biological sex. If it doesn’t have people’s correct sex on it, then it will be a huge waste of money & cause endless problems.

I’m not sure it’s the answer but do think if it’s inevitable then it should be useful and have sex as well as age and date of birth and photo. It can be used for lots of things then.

I’m fairly neutral on the idea – I can see positives (ease of dealing with services, proof of residence/eligibility for services etc) but also negatives (correcting inevitable mistakes could be exhausting/difficult).

I am in favour of accurate, regulated and verifiable ID similar to passports to be usable across society’s activities – eg travel, voting, employment.

We should have proper ID cards of some sort to prove our rights to certain services. It should not be possible for people to claim things they are not entitled to. Not sure if ID should be digital or not. Needs to be very well protected against hacking if digital.

Around 15 percent of people were more positive:

We need to move into the modern age with digital ID that can always be with you and is accurate and verifiable.

 I don’t *like* the idea but truthful ID is essential for life in the modern world both for the bearer and for those who require their services. For those of us who do not have a driver’s licence and have no need for/cannot afford a passport, digital ID could be the answer. 

I am elderly and no longer have a passport or driving licence so it would be a useful form of ID for me, although I am wary of it being misused by criminals. 

Many European countries have ID and it makes everything administratively easier for citizens. The only misgivings I have are related to cyber security (everything gets hacked these days), and of course the stupid notion of omitting sex.

I have reservations about compulsory ID but a voluntary digital ID might be a very useful and hassle-saving mechanism for lots of situations where you have to prove ID.

We must be about the only country in the world that does not have some form of ID card with biometric information to avoid fraud.

I think having ID is a great idea and would make life much easier. It works in other countries so why not here.

I believe that introducing a digital ID will help streamline government operations and provide greater convenience for the public. 

What do people think of Sex Matters’ proposal?

There was strong support for the idea that sex should be on digital ID if it happens. 85 percent were strongly positive about Sex Matters’ proposal to include accurate, biological sex.

The reasons most often cited are accuracy, safeguarding, and rights-based contexts such as single-sex sport and services. Many people raised concerns about ambiguity if sex is not included.

If it goes ahead, and I hope it does not, then it should be factual and may as well be used to protect women’s private spaces without trans people screaming nonsense about genital checks. If this is denied it shows further how in bad faith this government acts when it comes to upholding the rights of women and the Supreme Court ruling.

Men declaring that they are women is dangerous. It often leads to abuse and intimidation. If we have to have digital ID then we need to know who is really a woman and who is lying.

It would be clear and logical. Particularly now that there are groups determined to press home their superior interests of gender over sex.

Without sex the UK reinforces the myth of “gender” self-ID.

This is vital. We all know the well-rehearsed arguments. Removing sex markers is the agenda of those who say sex is “complicated (sic)” or irrelevant. This is wrong wrong wrong! Sex matters and leaving out this vital demographic information would be a huge mistake. It will embed self-ID by the back door. 

We must fight any attempt to omit, erase or otherwise undermine the central importance of a clear definition of sex in law and life.

To avoid adding sex would be another government tactic, like delaying the guidance for single sex services. Government are too afraid to upset the gender woo woo lobby.

Keep ID based on biological sex.

Would be helpful for those who proof of biological sex is necessary for employment, sporting involvement and approved online biological sex identity. 

No brainer. Must show biological sex to discern appropriateness of entry to some single gender services and preserve the right of women to be safe and knowing that they are within a female only space when necessary and appropriate.

Biological sex matters. It matters for accessing single sex spaces, services & opportunities. It matters when applying for jobs, scholarships, political roles & political roles etc. It is vital that government identification records biological sex. 

Sex is not changeable therefore only fact should be recorded. The sex you are observed at birth. 

I do not want digital ID. However it would be an absolute must to have biological sex recorded. But biological sex should be recorded and unchangeable on passports, medical and GP records and all other official documents. 

If we’re going to use it, some people will want it to prove their sex. For all the reasons Sex Matters has so powerfully campaigned on, this needs to be an accurate record of biological sex.

The most common question was why we are proposing that sex on digital identity should be an optional field.

I think that it should be mandatory to include sex on digital IDs, as it is such a problematic subject for so many people and organisations. Having one’s birth sex clearly stated should help to empower organisations to regulate single sex spaces, services and sports.

I think that it should be compulsory to record biological sex.

I think it is odd that it would be optional.

Sex should never be an “option”. Should be mandatory and based on biological sex. 

There were also questions about how sex could be verified for people who were not born in the UK. 

Would GPs certify biological sex or something else? I’m not sure the NHS is likely to provide accurate data. If some of the data is uncertain, I’m not sure about the value of any of it.

It sounds a bit vague for anyone not born in the UK. Would a man be able to claim he was a woman or a woman be able to claim she was a man? How would they need to prove their sex?

The main concern I have about relying on digital ID is that it is easy to falsify; there need to be reliable ways of verifying facts posted online.

We will produce a set of “frequently asked questions” to go into more detail. A small number of people said that they wouldn’t support sex on digital ID on principle.

Nothing, no information included would make me support Digital ID.

It must not go ahead in any form.

No one needs to carry ID/Sex ID. We know the difference between men and women and there are a minuscule number of “passes” in the UK.

If digital ID goes ahead it should contain as little information as possible.

I am against the proposal being made at all. I don’t want the idea preemptively legitimised by haggling re the form it takes.

The way it is set up looks like you are conceding to a Government intervention that is not needed or required. Of course in reality sex should be on there, but it should be a flat no to Digital ID.

Many people took the opportunity to thank Sex Matters for its work!

Please keep going, we need strong, intelligent women like you to raise awareness about these issues and to fight our corner. We will win in the end.

Your perseverance and motivation is an inspiration.

You do brilliant work on this and everything else, keep going.

Well done for spotting the danger of their initial proposals and successfully lobbying to stop the use of passport or driving licence sex. That would have been a disaster if implemented as proposed. 

Think you may find this an uphill battle but I 100% support you in it

The information provided has been very thorough and clear. Thank you. 

Thanks for raising the issue which I wasn’t fully aware of. 

Thank you for your relentless hard work, attempting to persuade politicians to see common-sense in this matter.

I think this subject is a brilliant one for Sex Matters to get its teeth into. Good luck!

I’ve got too much going on at the moment to worry about all this, therefore incredibly grateful that you exist to fight this on our behalf.

I wouldn’t have bothered with responding to the Government consultation without SM alerting me to this important issue. Thank you!

I would definitely like to take part in this campaign.

Lots of people asked for more information on how to find and do the consultation – we will reply by email. 

The consultation ends on Tuesday 5th May. Read our guidance, and then click through to the government survey and answer two questions. 

The post What do Sex Matters supporters think of digital identity?  appeared first on Sex Matters.

Maya and Helen explore why failing to include sex as a voluntary field on the BritCard is a cop-out that will leave individuals and service providers floundering and mired in conflict, instead of being able to simply and clearly verify a fact about people which is often needed.

Take action: A government consultation is open until Tuesday 5th May. Read our briefing and respond to the consultation:

The post Putting sex on digital ID appeared first on Sex Matters.

But the government does not plan to include sex on the BritCard, as it says sex “is not necessary for the intended purpose of the digital ID”. 

We think this is a mistake. It is a cop-out that will leave individuals and service providers floundering and mired in conflict, instead of being able to simply and clearly verify a fact about people that is often needed. 

Examples include:

• joining a dating service
• joining a single-sex association, such as Girlguiding or the Women’s Institute
• applying for a bursary, prize or award that is only for women 
• joining a gym and using its ID to access male or female changing rooms
• registering for sport with a national governing body or sports team, or for competitions
• applying for a job in social care, policing, prisons or a single-sex service
• seeking to rent in a shared house, homestay, hall of residence or dormitory
• registering with a healthcare or social-care provider
• registering with a single-sex service such as a rape crisis centre or women’s refuge, or being referred between such services.

Currently people in the UK have no reliable way of verifying their sex. What is worse, apparently authoritative documents like passports, driving licences and health records contain inaccurate information that mixes sex and gender identity.

This doesn’t just affect the records of people who have changed their recorded sex. It affects everyone. It means that even if a person’s sex is accurately recorded on their passport, driver’s licence or NHS record, they cannot use the document to prove this, because there is no way of knowing whether their documents are or aren’t trustworthy. 

Sex Matters does not take a general position on digital ID. We recognise that there are civil-liberties concerns about digital ID. But if a national digital ID is developed, we think it should include sex.

Sex should be included as a voluntary field

The development of a national digital identity is an opportunity to provide a simple, useful, inclusive and trusted way for people to verify their sex, which is needed in lots of everyday situations for eligibility for services (just as age, one of the most-cited use cases for digital ID, is). 

Including sex on digital identity does not mean that people would always need to share this data. 

It would not be difficult or disproportionate to include accurate sex data on digital ID as a voluntary field. For many people it will be possible to verify their sex easily by cross-referencing with the birth register, which is being digitised and which remains accurate. Making this data field voluntary allays privacy concerns for those who do not want this data on their digital ID. 

Including sex on national digital ID would be simple, cost-effective, privacy-protecting and rights-respecting for everyone. It would not harm trans people’s rights. Failing to include sex on national digital ID will create difficulty, confusion, compliance problems and costs. 

Whatever your view on digital ID, you can argue that if it exists it should include sex. 

Take action

A government consultation, “Making public services work for you”, is open until Tuesday 5th May. It is important that lots of people and businesses respond to say that sex should be included on digital ID.

Please read the Sex Matters briefing explaining the issues and then respond to the consultation. We have produced guidance on answering the questions. It should take you about 10 minutes.

The post Digital ID should include sex appeared first on Sex Matters.

The government has committed to creating a new national digital ID (BritCard) by the end of this Parliament, which it says will be useful, inclusive and trusted. In May 2026 it announced that it will introduce a Digital Access to Services Bill in order to enable this. 

The national digital ID aims to enable better access to public and private services, saving time and effort, as well as better safeguarding of personal information and privacy, while reducing fraud and improving efficiency. 

But the government does not plan to include sex on the BritCard, saying that it “is not necessary for the intended purpose of the digital ID”. We think this is a mistake. It is a cop-out that will leave individuals and service providers floundering and mired in conflict, instead of being able to simply and clearly verify a fact about people which is often needed. 

If a national digital ID is developed we think it should include sex as a voluntary field, and that field must be accurate. 

Businesses and organisations that record people’s sex, or that use sex as an eligibility criterion for particular services, need to trust that the information on the BritCard is accurate. 

The development of a national digital identity is an opportunity to provide a simple, useful, inclusive and trusted way for people to verify their sex, which is needed in lots of everyday situations for eligibility for services (just as age, one of the most-cited use cases for digital ID, is). 

It would not be difficult or disproportionate to include accurate sex data on digital ID as a voluntary field. Doing so would be simple, cost-effective, privacy-protecting and rights-respecting for everyone. 

Failing to include sex in national digital ID will create difficulty, confusion, compliance problems and costs. The government is the only body that can solve the sex data problem: it should not be left to the private sector to navigate through the mess left by decades of official confusion.

Sex Matters does not take a general position on digital ID. We recognise that there are civil-liberties concerns about digital ID in general.¹

Whatever your view on digital ID, you can argue that if it exists, it should include sex. 

Why people should be able to include sex on their digital ID

Reliable information on sex is needed in many situations

Professor Alice Sullivan said in her Review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender:

“Sex is a key demographic variable and collecting high quality, robust data on sex is critical to effective policymaking across a wide range of fields, from health and justice to education and the economy. It enables policymakers to measure and address disparities between women and men, and girls and boys. The government has a strong interest in promoting high- quality data on sex, both in its role as a funder of research and as a producer and user of statistics.

“Accurate record keeping is also vital for operational purposes, for safeguarding and, within the healthcare system, for patient safety and care.”²

People often need to declare accurately and reliably whether they are male or female. Examples include:

• joining a dating service
• joining a single-sex association, such as Girlguiding or the Women’s Institute
• applying for a bursary, prize or award that is only for women 
• joining a gym and using its ID to access male or female changing rooms
• registering for sport with a national governing body or sports team, or for competitions
• applying for a job in social care, policing, prisons or a single-sex service
• seeking to rent in a shared house, homestay, hall of residence or dormitory
• registering with a healthcare or social-care provider
• registering with a single-sex service such as a rape crisis centre or women’s refuge, or being referred between such services.

The Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers has clarified that in relation to the Equality Act, “sex” means biological sex. In other situations the biological meaning may simply be what individuals wish to convey about themselves. 

As Professor Sullivan recommends:

“The default target of any sex question should be sex (in other words, biological sex, natal sex, sex at birth). Questions which combine sex with gender identity, including gender identity as recognised by a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) have a mixed target. Sex as a biological category is constant across time and across jurisdictions, whereas the concept of ’legal sex’ subject to a GRC may be subject to change in the future and varies across jurisdictions. Using natal sex future-proofs data collection against any such change, ensuring consistency.”

People in the UK have no reliable way of verifying their sex

In the UK, we lack a single, authoritative way to prove that we are the sex we say we are.³ Online and offline, public and private services have no simple way of verifying sex. What is worse, apparently authoritative documents such as passports, driving licences and health records contain inaccurate information. 

• Passport: recorded sex can be changed with a doctor’s note or simply a personal declaration indicating that the person wishes to live “as the opposite gender” – 3,188 records known to be affected over the last five years.⁴
• eVisa: a person’s recorded sex can be changed if their name is changed by deed poll or if the “sex” marked on their home-country passport is changed.
• Driving licence: a person’s recorded sex can be changed on request. Sex does not appear on the face of the driving licence, but is encoded in the licence number – 15,481 records known to be affected over the last six years.⁵ 
• NHS records: a person’s recorded sex in NHS data can be changed on request, after which a new NHS number is issued.

This does not only affect the records of people who have changed their recorded sex. It affects everyone. It means that even if a particular person’s sex is accurately recorded on their passport, driver’s licence or NHS record they cannot use the document to prove this, because there is no way of knowing whether their documents are trustworthy. 

Lack of a simple reliable means to verify sex causes problems

While people can almost always tell what sex other people are in person, the lack of reliable administrative data to verify this, and the existence of unreliable records creates problems:

1. Proving sex is confusing, complex and burdensome. Unreliable “information” is worse than useless, as it leads to confusion, conflict, risk and costly duplication. Organisations are unclear about how to ask or what to ask, and when they record “sex” from an unreliable source it cannot later be relied on as reliable. This creates unnecessary cost and administration, undermines efficiency in both public and private sectors, and makes it harder to provide single-sex services, which are particularly important for women. 
2. The government cannot deliver services effectively. Not having a single proof of sex and consistent data records leads to problems such as trans people missing out on health screening tests and men having to be asked if they are pregnant before having an X-ray. Lack of sex data prevents services from accurately monitoring impacts and outcomes for women and men. 
3. Mixed data creates security risks. When sex and gender identity are conflated or individuals are allowed to change their sex marker, this creates data risks that individuals may be highlighted as trans when they do not want that to be recorded. Recording accurately that someone is male or female is a simple way to ensure data minimisation: that factual data does not disclose trans identity. Any additional data (such as “gender identity”) creates risks of privacy breaches and knock-on issues.
4. Transgender people face accidental exclusion. If the “sex” field is left in a muddle, transgender people are more likely to raise anti-fraud red flags because they appear to have mismatched records. If sex is recorded accurately wherever it is recorded, then there is no possibility of a mismatch.

Including sex in digital identity would protect everyone’s rights

Everyone has a sex, including people who identify as transgender or non-binary. People who identify as trangender may wish to keep their sex private (or not have it recorded) in situations where that information is not needed. 

Digital identity is designed to work based on selective disclosure. Not all information will need to be shared every time the digital ID is used. For example, for some situations it might be sufficient to share that a person is over 16, over 18 or over 65, rather than reveal their date of birth, or that they have a right to work, rather than their nationality. The digital ID is designed to allow people to share just enough information to prove eligibility for a given purpose.

This means that the system could also be designed so that accurate data about a person’s sex is included but disclosed only when the person chooses to share that information. For example a person proving their age in order to buy alcohol or their identity in order to rent a flat would not disclose their sex.

Having sex on digital ID would not harm transgender people’s rights. It would not stop people declaring or expressing their “gender identity”, or require them to reveal their sex when the information is not needed. They could have privacy about their sex when sex is not relevant, and they would be able to access services lawfully available to them. 

How will digital ID work?

The government has committed to creating a new national digital ID (BritCard), which it says will be useful, inclusive and trusted, by the end of this Parliament. It aims to enable better access to public and private services, saving time and effort, as well as better safeguarding of personal information and privacy, while reducing fraud and improving efficiency. 

The digital ID being developed by the government is different from and complementary to private-sector digital verification services for which the government is developing the framework, enabled by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

The Digital Access to Services Bill will set out the information that the digital ID will contain and how it can be issued, maintained, stored, and verified. 

The government’s proposal

• The digital ID will be provided by the government through a log-in to gov.uk.
• There will be no legal obligation for people to have or present it. 
• It will build on existing systems. Individuals will be able to verify their identity to get a digital ID using a UK passport or eVisa, or via another route for those who do not have one of these. 
• Once issued it will be downloadable as a digital “credential” on a smartphone.
• It will include a person’s full name, date of birth, nationality and a photo but, as currently designed, not their sex.
• It will have selective disclosure functionality. Not all of a person’s information will need to be shared when the digital ID is used. For example, it could be used to prove someone is over 18 or has the right to work without revealing their date of birth or nationality. 
• People will be able to change some details, such as their name (upon marriage or if it is changed by deed poll) or their photo, while other details will be unchangeable.
• There will be a system to allow digital ID to be reissued to correct errors.
• The government is planning to develop a “Government Checker” service that will allow a basic check that a digital ID is valid and trustworthy.
• It will not create a single database of all government data about a person. 
• It will provide a foundation for private-sector digital verification services that enable users to connect their identity to other facts about them such as qualifications, bank accounts and memberships.

The government is not planning to include sex 

The government says that “information about sex and gender” is unnecessary for the intended purpose of the digital ID. It is not needed for checks that the digital ID belongs to the person presenting it, which will be done through biometric authentication.

Digital right-to-work checks and many checks in the private sector (including Know Your Customer and age-verification checks) do not require the collection or sharing of information about a person’s sex (or gender). The government says: 

“Similarly, access to most public services does not require this information. In specific scenarios where sex or gender information is required, it is better collected and verified by other means appropriate to that scenario, rather than contained in the digital ID.”⁶

It is true that there are no situations where a person’s “gender” (as in gender identity) is needed, and in any case gender identity cannot be verified. However, sex is a different matter. 

How should sex be included?

The government appears to have recognised that because sex on British and Irish passports and eVisas is unreliable, these cannot be used to provide sex data for digital ID. Excluding these unreliable data sources from digital ID is a step forward.

Reliable data on sex should be included in the digital ID. This will need to be verified in a different way, using reliable sources. Identifying sources that could be used with people’s consent would not be difficult. 

For people born in the UK, the most straightforward approach would be to cross-reference with the birth register (which is being digitised), since this has been kept accurate (including for people with gender-recognition certificates). 

For those born in other countries, other reliable administrative data sources would need to be found. This could include certain statutory records. For example, if someone is registered as the mother on the birth record of a child born in the UK, this is proof that the person is female. If a person married before 2004 and is registered as a husband or wife, this is also accurate proof of sex. Other possibilities would be their GP vouching for their sex (in response to an unambiguous question about sex, not gender identity), or a cheek-swab test from a validated source (such as for an athlete). 

Sex Matters’ proposal is that sex should be included as a voluntary field on digital ID. 

The government is also exploring whether people with a digital ID should be legally required to inform the government within an appropriate timeframe of certain changes (such as a name change) or errors to their personal information. This mechanism would also provide a means to solve the problem of unreliable sex data. Everyone knows their own sex. If people who want to have their sex on their Digital ID are legally required to give the correct answer and not allowed to change the record based on gender self-ID, the system would become self-correcting. 

Why should sex should be included as a voluntary field?

Sex Matters is proposing this solution because unreliable record-keeping by HM Passport Office and other apparently authoritative data sources, as well as by governments in other countries, means it is unlikely to be possible to verify sex for everyone in the first instance. 

Not being able to easily verify someone’s sex from administrative data (for example because they were not born in the UK) should not be a barrier to them getting a digital identity. For many people it will be possible to verify their sex easily, and everyone else will have the option to add their sex later, as new reliable methods are developed. 

Making this data field voluntary also allays privacy and data-minimisation concerns for those who do not want this data on their digital ID. A person can always change their mind and have the digital ID reissued with or without their sex data included.

Updated 18th May 2026, following the King’s Speech 

1. Big Brother Watch (accessed April 2026). No2DigitalID.
2. HM Government (2025). Review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender: executive summary.
3. Sex Matters (2024). Sex and the Data Bill.
4. Figures compiled from freedom-of-information requests through Who Do They Know.
5. Figures compiled from freedom-of-information requests through Who Do They Know and Steph Spyro (2024). ‘Changing gender on official papers is “too easy” amid record high for driver’s licences’, Daily Express.
6. HM Government (2026). Chapter 3.1, Making public services work for you with your digital identity.

The post Putting sex on digital ID – a briefing appeared first on Sex Matters.

The government has committed to creating a new national digital ID (BritCard) by the end of this Parliament. 

It will include a person’s full name, date of birth, nationality and a photo, but not their sex.

We think this is a mistake. If a national system of digital ID is developed it should include sex as a voluntary field.

• Read the blog post.
• Read the briefing.

A consultation is open until Tuesday 5th May. It is important that lots of people and businesses respond to say that sex should be included.

How to respond to the consultation

You can respond as a member of the public or an expert, or on behalf of an organisation (including a service provider). 

You are asked to respond to the core proposal (Part 1: Our Ambition), and then select which other sections to respond to. 

Select The build and design of digital ID and answer the questions about chapter 3.1.

Part 1: Our Ambition

What do you think the main benefits will be, if any, for the government’s new national digital ID system?   

If you support digital ID you can say so – the main benefits include making it easier for people to interact with public and private services. 

What do you think the main drawbacks will be, if any, for the government’s new national digital ID system?   

If you have concerns about digital ID, you can say so here.

One of the government’s aims for the new national digital ID system is to make it easier for people to prove who they are. To what extent do you agree or disagree that the proposed system could help achieve this aim, and why?  

We suggest: Somewhat disagree.

Please explain your answer   

The current proposal leaves sex out of a person’s digital identity. Sex is an important part of who someone is.

Explain why you think it is important that sex is included as an attribute. 

You might want to cover these points:

• The current design of digital identity allows people to prove their age but not their sex.
• People should also be able to prove their sex in the same simple, useful, trustworthy way they can prove their age.
• There currently is no reliable way for people to prove this.
• The government is missing an opportunity to put this right by not including sex in the design of the system.

Chapter 3.1: Information contained in the digital ID  

The national digital ID will include a person’s full name, date of birth, nationality, and a biometric facial image (photo). What further information, if any, should the digital ID also include?   

Explain why you think it is important that sex (“biological sex”) is included.

You might want to cover these points:

• Everyone has a sex (sometimes called biological sex).
• It is important information about them.
• Currently there is no reliable way to accurately verify a person’s sex from documents/ remotely, and many official records are unreliable.
• There are many reasons why people may want to prove their sex.
  • joining a dating service
  • joining a single-sex association, such as Girlguiding or the Women’s Institute
  • applying for a bursary, prize or award that is only for women 
  • joining a gym and using its ID to access male or female changing rooms
  • registering for sport with a national governing body or sports team, or for competitions
  • applying for a job in social care, policing, prisons or a single-sex service
  • seeking to rent in a shared house, homestay, hall of residence or dormitory
  • registering with a health or social-care provider
  • registering with a single-sex service such as a rape crisis centre or women’s refuge, or being referred between such services.
• The government’s Digital ID is the foundation for private-sector digital verification systems. There is only one correct answer to the question of biological sex – the government should provide it. 
• Sex should be included on a voluntary basis.
• By drawing on the birth register (rather than passports or other documents) for this field the system could provide accurate sex data for the majority of people in the UK, with additional options for those born in other countries.

You may want to talk about personal experience here, for example as a gym-goer, athlete, user or provider of single-sex services, user of health and social care or member of a single-sex association.

Businesses and organisations accepting the national digital ID need to trust that the information on it is up to date and accurate. We are exploring whether people with a digital ID should be legally required to inform the government within an appropriate timeframe of certain changes (such as a name change) or errors to their personal information, so that their digital ID can be updated. 

To what extent do you agree or disagree with a legal requirement to inform the government of changes or errors within an appropriate timeframe?

We suggest: Strongly agree.

Please explain your answer

An error-correction mechanism and a legal requirement to correct errors would be a simple and straightforward way of ensuring accurate sex data. Everyone knows their own sex. 

People should have the option of not having their sex on digital ID. But if they choose to have sex included, it should be accurate.

The post Respond to the consultation on digital ID appeared first on Sex Matters.