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.

This email campaign has now finished – thank you to all those who wrote to MPs.

So far more than 2,000 people have written to their MP. This is the second of three blog posts about our asks. 

2. Commit to fixing the problem of inaccurate sex records, and their use in new forms of digital identity

The law is clear. But one of the things that makes it difficult to provide single-sex services with confidence is that service providers cannot rely on official documents such as passports and driving licences to provide reliable information on anyone’s sex. Even medical records can be changed, and none of this requires a gender-recognition certificate. 

No systematic records have been kept, so the numbers are not known: there could be as many as 100,000 people whose ID shows them as the sex which they are not. And the government seems set on making it worse by developing digital identities based on this unreliable sex data.

Official data systems are in such a mess in relation to sex because of decades of ad-hoc and informal measures attempting to accommodate the wishes and protect the privacy of people who identify as transgender. There are better ways of protecting privacy – by making it clear where sex is recorded, making sure it is accurate and only sharing the data if there is a lawful basis to do so. 

Whether or not the UK adopts a digital identity system, the problem with flawed, contradictory sex records must be addressed now, following the Supreme Court’s judgment which made clear that many ordinary services can and should be provided based on biological sex.  

The public-sector equality duty requires data collection about sex, not about heterogenous groupings of women and trans-identifying men who, the Supreme Court pointed out, “may have little in common”. The Supreme Court warned against corrupting data collection and said: 

“We do not understand how the interests of this heterogenous group can begin to be considered and addressed”. 

It’s time to address this so that government data and official documents can be trusted. 

The post It’s time to COMMIT to fixing the data appeared first on Sex Matters.