The Data Bill will fail if the government can’t be clear about sex - Sex Matters

[IwantToRetire]

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 millions of pounds and making it easier for people to do business and access services.

The aim is not to create a mandatory digital ID system or to introduce “ID cards”, but to create a sound basis for people and organisations to voluntarily share and use trustworthy information.

Today, Sex Matters is publishing a report on the risks and opportunities of the bill

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/the-data-bill-will-fail-if-the-government-cant-be-clear-about-sex/

The debate was earlier this week, and not sure what was said. But important to keep an eye on.

(Sorry is there is an existing thread, a quick search didn't bring anything up.)

The Bill goes into Lords committee stage (where they go through the detail of the drafting) from 3 December. It will have a similar stage in the Commons later. Worth watching the Hansard reports of that. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3825/stages

There's a related one:

Sex Matters: Digital identity verification can end the gender wars www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5195737-sex-matters-digital-identity-verification-can-end-the-gender-wars

Lost all respect for them for championing this I'm afraid.

I missed that so thanks for the link.

No time to read, but anyone who thinks digitial is the solution ....

What do they mean, the bill will fail? The GRA has failed not its nefarious aims but it has failed society. The GRA is the problem. This:

"The problem: existing data sources are unreliable"

Is not the problem. The GRA needs to go. Regardless of saying "oh you wont be forced to have digital ID", does anyone believe that? We are being ever more coerced into all this stuff. Of course we will end up being forced to accept it.

And all the "problems" listed on that article are from the GRA. Why should we accept being coerced into digitising newborns? Ill never accept this. This:

"The solution: acting now will avoid years of costly confusion
The fundamental requirement to fix this problem is authoritative data sources. We identify two main sources:
• Birth records: The bill makes provision for digital birth records. This register can provide an accurate source of sex data that people should be able to query to verify their sex.
• Healthcare records: The bill makes provision for a new health and social care data standard. This must also ensure that sex is recorded accurately and would provide another authoritative source. "

Is NOT a solution.

The approach of Sex Matters on this issue baffles me. They’re usually more astute in recommending changes to legislation but I just can’t see where they’re going with this argument.

They keep saying 'we are where we are' when it comes to GRA 2004 mucking things up but never seem to be inclined to argue for repeal. And most of the problems SM draw attention to arise from GRA 2004 and additional problems from EA 2010 so digital ID will do feck all to address these problems.

Also, government infrastructure at the national and local level is not secure enough to store anything like digital ID databases - hackers will be drawn to the data like flies to honey and once people’s data is stolen then there’s no fixing that cock up.

If I’m missing something I’d love someone to explain it to me but I see it as corrupt identity data being translated into digital ID is still corrupt data 🤷‍♀️

Do SM take the view that, realistically, repeal of the GRA is not going to happen in the foreseeable, and them adding their voices to oppose it wouldn't make a damn of difference? That's what I assumed. Obviously they're not wrong that unreliable data in can only lead to bad outcomes.

Here’s a video from their channel outlining their position on the new Data Bill:

Video from the House of Lords addressing the effects on the proposed Data Bill of widespread inaccuracy in the sex data held by govt departments such as Passport Office and DVLA:

That bit about sex mattering in blood transfusions got me Googling; I didn't think it did. It looks like the picture is slightly unclear.

If I remember correctly, men shouldn’t receive blood from a woman who has been pregnant as it’s not safe for the man.

Yes, this is the Telegraph article on it:

https://archive.ph/NzA08

OMG you can catch babies

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr Rutger Middelburg, from Sanquin Research in Leiden, and colleagues said: “Male recipients who received a transfusion from an ever-pregnant female donor had a statistically significant increase in mortality compared with those who received a transfusion from a male donor or from a female donor without a history of pregnancy.

https://archive.ph/NzA08#selection-1517.0-1528.0

Gosh, it’s tiresome when reality refuses to go along with ideology and continuously and stubbornly manifests actual physical/biological differences between the sexes.

I know, right? Bummer.

I didn't know that. So blood doesn't all go into, say an A positive pot, but is split by sex?

As you say, it's a bummer when sex differences don't reflect gender woo.

Who knew that women had transphobic blood?

So not just terf to the heart!