How should I fill in my employer's "Self-ID" questionnaire?

You should probably refer to the Data Protection Act which is the actual law governing collection of personal data in the UK. www.gov.uk/data-protection (The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).)

I haven't re-read it but from memory it basically says no one should hold personal information on someone that isn't relevant to why they are on a database. eg if you take out a membership its irrelevant to have any information other than contact address and sub end date.

So as an employer the only info they should hold on you is your name, job title, salary.

If they want to do a survey trying to find out about equality, ie are women mainly doing lower level jobs, then as said up thread this should be done via an annonymous survey.

You could contact whoever sent out the questionnaire and say you think it breaches the UK Data Protection Act.

And additionally if they want to collect info for equality research they should use the accepted protected characteristics.

I am not an expert in HR however. And if they are thinking what they are doing is being inclusive by a remit wider than protected characteristics I would have thought the first step would be to ask employees if they want to answer these type of intrusive questions. Rather than just saying, and therefore implying you should, please fill in this form.

Isnt this a copy and paste job of the equality act stating that gender identity is not a protected category. Gender reassignment is but that is wholly sep3and different to sex and as such conflating gender and sex as the same thing was fundamentally rewriting the Equality Act and therefore not necessarily entirely legal if that leads to discrimination against women (on the bias of their sex) and indeed this entire questionnaire could be considered as doing that if it is not explicit in separating rights and equality based on sex and on gender resassignment.

Aye - if there was a listing for dog, mouse, gnat - woman would still come after gnats ass...

Was it only me that immediately saw red at the listed order Man Nonbinary Woman? Used to always coming behind man, but now we have to come behind nonbinary!

europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/data-protection/data-protection-gdpr/index_en.htm?cookies=disabled

I realise this is EU - but we are not at the end of the transition period and the UK signed up to GDPR at the time and I think is being transferred over. Most of the link should provide useful info including:

When is data processing allowed?

*EU data protection rules mean you should process data in a fair and lawful manner, for a specified and legitimate purpose and only process the data necessary to fulfil this purpose.

You must ensure that you fulfil one of the following conditions to process the personal data; you:

have been given the consent of the individual concerned
need the personal data to fulfil a contractual obligation with the individual
need the personal data to satisfy a legal obligation
need the personal data to protect the vital interests of the individual
process personal data to carry out the task in the interest of the public
are acting in your company's legitimate interests, as long as the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual whose data are processed are not seriously impacted. If the person's rights override your company's interests, then you cannot process the personal data.

The GDPR applies strict rules for processing data based on consent. The purpose of these rules is to ensure that the individual understands what he or she is consenting to. This means that consent should be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous by way of a request presented in clear and plain language.*

In your case - it seems a stretch to imply that answering equality related questions -which staff expect to do- but are not contained equality act - which is then not explained how it falls outside the equality act (sex m/f) (gender reassignment y/n)- is informed consent.

There’s probably stuff in the Human Rights Act - article 8 and 14 about the legal right to privacy and protection from discrimination/indirect discrimination including based on sex and political thought.

Questions about sex and gender reassignment - keeps the employer within the law, enables legally required equality assessments to be completed, and enables staff to answer accurately - particularly as the inclusion of non binary implies that women - who answer women - are signing up to acknowledgement of corrosive gender stereotypes and none of the above could inadvertently out people as GC.

documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:7ff7f6cd-07ab-40b0-b894-302ad7dab7e9

Here's Stonewall instructions on how to indoctrinate everyone into the stupid language. It's all what and how until the bottom of page 28 where there are vague useless points on what to do with the data.

The objective is of course to force the stupid language on everyone.

Ignore it, it's not worth engaging with.

Re permission. The employer can collect info with staff permission- I.e everyone’s birthdays written in the boss’s diary and not just confidentially held with HR.

But there is a clear lack of requirement - no legal basis for this information to be collected. Only in the format as already stated above. In fact it will probably make the employer vulnerable to employment claims as they won’t be able to demonstrate equal opportunity compliance.

You haven’t provided consent for such questions. They haven’t asked for it - and if consent was asked - it would be discriminatory - we are not required by law (yet) to have a gender identity Yes I don’t have one either or- conversely out ourselves as GC if we chose not to.

They don’t need the information aside from what has been discussed up thread.

I assume that this would be the same for univeristies...But I don’t know.

This is interesting. My university (of which I'm a student not an employee) changed their registration questions this year to ask what is your gender and do you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth. Do the same rules apply for student's data as they do employees?

Can’t you put ‘feminist’ in every single open text box?

Would you recommend keeping it very simple, or would you go into some detail about why it's important they collect actual sex data?

I would keep it simple - the questionnaire breaches GDPR guidelines, if the company is intending to write an Equality and Diversity policy, its provisions must be based on the protected characteristics because that's what discrimination claims will be based on.

My friend's experience with their US employer is that the HR people were profoundly ignorant of the protections that exist for staff across Europe. My friend did try to warn them about certain German worker protections but because the employer honestly believed they could be circumvented, ridden roughshod over or plain ignored they did what they wanted, thinking they could hire and fire at will. It cost them dearly.

So it is possible that you will be ignored, because they might genuinely not know the laws that protect workers from discrimination here.

In the end, as such forms cannot be mandatory, I'm thinking you could just ignore it if needed.

I've included a screenshot of what data an employer can keep about you with and without your permission (since you said the form will be linked to you, even if the people accessing the form won't know it's yours). What the form is asking about is data you decide whether you want to give them. And if you don't that's the end of your involvement.

The UK Government page on the data is here.

As dragon says

Q should be:

Sex f/m (?prefer not to say)
GR y/n/prefer not to say

I would suggest a quick email to ask what basis under GDPR do they have to collect this data and point out that even if they do have that they need to collect data under protected characteristics separately so sex and gender reassignment should be separate and their should be an option for prefer not to say

ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

Hope this helps.

Effectively employers can’t ask for any personal information that they want to, they need a legal basis - I am assuming Stonewall et al told them it was legal and ‘best practice’.

They are only allowed to gather information for legal purposes - ie equality monitoring - sex and gender reassignment.

I'd ignore it and if pressed, say I was uncomfortable filling this out for personal reasons.

As there isn't a "fuck you" option, I would ignore it.

Just ignore it, they can’t MAKE you fill it out, surely?

@OverTheRainbow88 what exactly do you want to know more about?

Is there the option of scoring out gender on the gender/sex and then choosing woman?

ThinEndoftheWedge - do you know that for a fact and can you point me to it anywhere? I am having this battle and need the legal facts to make my case.

They have no right asking this - it is against GDPR rules and therefore probably illegal. They have no right asking staff if they are transgender or not as that is outing.

They are allowed to ask - sex - male / female
Gender reassignment - yes/no.

There are probably other threads with more information/advice

Email them and explain your struggling to complete it. You understand that they can ask about the protected characteristics of sex, disability, gender reassignment, race but your confused as there’s nowhere to state female sex. Also you don’t have a gender identity and don’t give thought to gender stereotypes

I would love to understand more about what you are all saying... are there any good websites/articles or anything you could point me in the right direction to, to read up? Thanks!

I can't see how this is enforceable or mandatory in any way.

Or 'prefer not to answer' is always one of my favourite get out options.