Digital identity
Could digital identity systems solve the “gender wars”? We explore how well-designed systems could meet requirements for safeguarding, science, sport and safety, allowing people to keep their sex private when it doesn’t matter but making sure that when it does matter, that data is accurate.
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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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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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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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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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A radically simpler system than gender self-ID
Critics of the Gender Recognition Act who call for gender self-identification say the current system is too much of an administrative burden. They are calling on the government to bring people together to find solutions.
21st February 2022
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Sex and digital identities
How digital identities can solve the problem with sex and gender identity – and how getting it wrong will make the problem worse.
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Sex, gender and medical data: a way forward
Susan Bewley, Margaret McCartney, Catherine Meads and Amy Rogers published an article in the British Medical Journal calling for clarity about sex and gender in medical records and data.
This "rapid response" from Sex Matters co-founder Maya Forstater was published online by the BMJ.23rd March 2021
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NHS: let’s talk about sex
This tweet by Emma Parnell, Lead Service Designer at NHS Digital, and the associated Medium post “Let’s Talk About Sex” is interesting. Parnell writes in detail about how she worked to remove the question of whether a patient is male or female from the online system for booking COVID...
20th March 2021