Parkrun update email

[grafittiartist]

Has anyone else read the new Ts and Cs from Parkrun? Emailed this afternoon.
They are now asking for a gender identity on registration.
Not sure where that leaves others like me who don't have one.

I read somewhere recently about some people broaching this topic with the head people of parkrun recently. They met them for drinks in a pub. Can’t remember if it was in here I read about it or in a fb running group, possibly the latter. But apparently the head ParkRun people are not backing down and were barely interested in the conversation. Very much of the opinion if you don’t like it tough, bugger off.

I've also submitted a query!

https://www.change.org/p/reinstate-statistics-on-parkrun-for-all-participants/u/32553862?recruiter=641571407&recruited_by_id=3ac67890-b242-11e6-a25c-27779a3d8503

Thank you. That’s it.

They're doubling down on their decision, no point complaining about it. There's nothing new here from what I can see. This has been going on for years now. Parkrun don't care.

Disappointed.
Am a Parkrunner.
I dont have a gender.
Will email too.

Plenty of people go along and run without being registered. If you look at the results, they are down as unknown. I've also known people run it but not cross the finish line so they are not in the results at all.

If they don't want to publish results, I don't see why they need any information on gender identity at all. Surely, no one will see it.

Exactly this. Why collect data that is not needed? That's a question for GDPR bods.

Article 5(1) requires that personal data shall be:

“(a) processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to individuals (‘lawfulness, fairness and transparency’);

(b) collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes; further processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes shall not be considered to be incompatible with the initial purposes (‘purpose limitation’);

(c) adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which they are processed (‘data minimisation’);

(My bold)

What is the point in collecting 'gender identity' data? There is none that I can see.

Well at the moment they need it to work out their age gradings (which are based some sort of fluid "gender" interpretation best known to themselves)

But they may get rid of results tables in time and you might just get your own time and age grading in an email. In which case they don't need that data other than for diversity monitoring I guess (but then it needs to be gender reassignment, not identity).

How is age related to 'gender identity'?!

As you say, if it's for diversity monitoring it's the wrong question.

Age isn't relevant to gender identity, but age gradings are based on sex/gender/whatever interpretation they use plus age - they don't just have age gradings for a certain age group, it also depends if you are male or female.

It makes sense to have Age + Sex if you are putting people into buckets for athletics - that's how it has commonly been done across many disciplines for many years.

I don't see how Gender Identity is useful at all

It isn't useful, is it!

We split by sex because biological men will always have the biological advantage for running.

I don't get why they just won't see that splitting by "gender" is nonsense and achieves nothing, apart from allowing men to cheat.

They do see it but they don't care because "it's not a race" (not for women anyway) and they are rapidly moving to the viewpoint that it's not a run, either. It's a spiritual get-together in the park.

If they want that, I don't know why they don't start a new type of event, leveraging their branding, and leaving our timed 5k run (with male and female SEX categories) alone!

The Age Grading used to reference sex. Now it references gender. Ridiculous!

The age/sex groupings are great in Park Run (I even won one once ). It means that even though you are a 49 year old woman, who is half-way down the race as a whole, you might still win your group, and you might have a higher age grade % than some 17-year old boy who trounced you.

You can also compare your own results over time. If at age 49 you have an age grade of, say, 65%, and at age 55 you have a higher age grade of 68%, you have improved - even though your time might be slower.

My local park run is regularly "won" by a woman in the 65-69 age group, if you sort the results by age-grading rather than by raw times. Yes, she's a real woman, she's just very very fast.

I think they are simply asking if male or female, so to create a list of winners for both categories? There is almost always a box for prefer not to say or other to type gender identity for most things but seems local events haven't caught up with this yet. I'm sure they will and there will be an outcome of people who finish in order rather than gender. Xx

Why not make a formal complaint to the ICO?

Make a complaint | ICO

I'm a runner but I've never done Parkrun as I absolutely loathe organised running events. If I did participate in it, I'd consider complaining myself.

If it's not a "race" and there are no "results", what legitimate purpose can there be in collecting the information?

Parkrunners are by definition a self-selected and unrepresentative sample of people. Analysing running times by an attribute or characteristic that can be self defined can't possibly provide any useful scientific or health data.

Therefore there cannot possibly be a legitimate purpose for collecting and processing it.

In the first instance, I think you'd need to complain to Parkrun. Then escalate to ICO.

Wrote to Parkrun- no reply yet.
Will also think about the ICO too.
Thanks all. (Don't know how to do the official "thanks" thing yet!!)

I agree Manxexile.

I think we are heading towards a situation whereby seeking to categorise by sex and or gender identity will be difficult to do, except for circumstances where there is a legitimate reason to.

I think this will result in far better outcomes for GC women than TRAs. There is a strong evidence base for the need for categorising by sex.