Sex and "The Data (Use and Access) Bill" - Supreme Court Ruling Undone by Stealth?

[KnottyAuty]

A new thread to discuss what might be done about this potential disaster for accurate data recording on sex and implications. As before, if sex data is not recorded this will be default, government backed gender self ID.

"Core to this bill is a trust framework for “digital verification services” (DVS) to allow people to exchange verified personal information about themselves easily without relying on paper documents"

In other words a male can register with the app as a female, and the app will create a type of pass for entry into any single sex space.

Background briefing from last December:
https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Summary-report-Sex-and-the-Data-Bill.pdf

Briefing on the Amendment for accurate recording of sex - MPs voted against last Wednesday (7th May):
https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Data-Bill-briefing-%E2%80%93-Amendment-NC21.pdf

Many of us will have emailed our MPs after this thread last weekend:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5328897-urgent-bh-terfing-write-to-your-mp-today-5th-may-on-the-data-bill

Many of us have had no reply. Others have received a reply and been called transphobic by their MP! This is despite public opinion clearly hardening against self ID on YouGov polls.

The Bill is going to the Lords next Wednesday 12th May.

What can be done to press for accurate recording of sex in this new digital ID system?

Maybe that’s the answer - write to all the insurers and those providing indemnity cover to businesses? Get them to lobby due to their business risk?

Do these politicians realise what a massive vote loser the TWaW belief is? Many of us think it's a load of nonsense but were silenced by the McCarthyist/Stasi style witch hunt against us.

I suspect their insurers will get twitchy very quickly.

People often seem to expect insurers to stop things but all that actually happens is they put their prices up.

I emailed mine, he's Labour, I see from the list he voted against the amendment, I thought he would because he a party drone and always does what he's told. He hasn't responded to my email, there's a chance he might eventually because he has replied to my email's before, so I have my reply to his reply already waiting for when he does. 🤬

I doubt that insurers will need this. It will only take one case where sex is concealed to come to court and the question asked over whether biological sex has been recorded on whatever system and this has failed and the insurer will simply refuse to cover the claim.

I would argue the areas where this is most likely to happen is in the public sector so such a decision will send shock waves.

As I say how you decide to audit this for your own protection matters. Asking for a birth certificate probably isn't sufficient. It will probably be something along the lines of needing a signed declaration of sex where relevant (under exception to privacy relating to human rights - this is healthcare, public interest and security as a basic summary). This then passes liability onto individuals.

So I can see in future employment contracts for sensitive areas will include a declaration of sex as a term of employment for insurance and liability purposes.

This then also makes a false declaration for a specific purpose gross misconduct and potentially fraudulent (and a criminal matter).

All this stuff about data and integrity misses the point. If you do a trial of a drug and use dodgy data you expose yourself to risk - you have a legitimate aim in asking for sex in the public interest and on health grounds. If you have a police office who does searches of the public, you have a duty of care to the public to protect.

Anywhere you fail, by your own methodology, to record sex you are exposing yourself to increased risk of getting caught out. And it WILL happen because there is now a growing mood that doesn't want to put up with this and if this explodes the danger is of 'no win no fee' scenarios because there are so many scenarios where this might apply particularly in the US (the US is currently behind us on this as they don't have the SC ruling behind them, but we are likely to see claims start happening off the back of what's happening here) and that may open the door to that here too.

And we then circle back around to employers not wanting to be exposed by a dodgy employee and wanting a better way of protecting themselves through official data being accurate thus creating a demand for a reversal on birth certificates being editable.

It will take times but I don't know how you reverse out of this unless the Equality Act is amended and I see zero appetite for that even amongst Labour MPs.

NHS can't afford this.

Whenever i discuss this kind of issue with anyone, my tack is to say that if we don't record sex and then (where "appropriate") gender identity, we can't identify crimes against trans people, we can't target help and resources to trans people and so on.

I completely bypass recording their crimes and focus on why they should be BEGGING the police and other agencies to record their real sex.

The more I think about this the bigger the opportunity I see. I wonder how many people realise that passport could have their sex markers changed on request. Or that people could get birth certificates reissued.

This Bill is a great chance to make all of that public.

Yes letters to insurers but also to individual service providers and government entities. Anywhere single sex provisions or EA2010 duties apply. If the legislation is passed unchanged then relying on the digital app will have become an unsafe thing to do because the data is too unreliable to absolve you of any reasonable due diligence obligations.

Ditto good healthcare and equality of healthcare for transpeople.

This is not a one way street embedding sex into law. Transpeople need it too for their own interests.

The thing here is often that staff members are fully aware that someone is trans. So due diligence doesn't give you a pass just by having the paperwork.

You cant have a situation where you are claiming all your staff are women but your staff all know that Jane was John. Cos legally you are taking the piss.

How do we find out how our MPs voted? I haven't had a reply from my LibDem one.

Agreed. If the entity who has the duty was effectively on notice (or could be reasonably expected to have known) that someone was not presenting as their biological sex they they are on very thin ice.

e.g. If a member of staff transitioned whilst working, then no employer could claim that they didn’t know irrespective of what the app said.

But it won’t remove our ability to see.

We will still know what biological sex is, and we know what the law says and whether or not the space in question is restricted to biological females.

Just because the government is trying to put together yet another amazing all-singing, all-dancing hi-tech scheme that’s tipped to revolutionise the world before it does…precisely nothing and is subsequently added to the growing pile of similarly ‘cutting-edge’ failed schemes, it doesn’t mean that we or organisations have to rely on it (as I understand it, it’s optional, but please correct me if I’m wrong).

I think all we need to be doing is highlighting that the DVLA, NHS etc don’t have accurate or reliable sex data and therefore shouldn’t be used as a trustworthy source within the scheme for this purpose.

Personally, I don’t think women need to solve the problem of making the government scheme successful in terms of sex verification - we just need to make sure everyone knows that it’s not fit to be used for this specific purpose. I don’t personally care if the app is a success of not - we know what sex is and an app can’t change reality or the law.

As Sex Matters’ briefing warns, orgs relying on the digital verification scheme to fulfil any EA duties around single-sex spaces risk ending up in court, where the actual sex of the people in question will be revealed, and then other orgs will note the risk of relying on the app for sex verification. The amendment would have been nice, to align sex across all official documents in a coherent way and to reduce the number of fights women will have to have, but even if organisations do try to pretend that GI = sex, the law is on our side and that will prevail in the long run.

Realistically, the organisations that need to verify a person’s sex will be aware of the SC ruling and will know what definition of sex they should be applying. They will know that the app uses a different definition of sex and therefore won’t rely on it for this purpose because of the high risk of litigation. The ones who get it wrong can explain why they thought they were above the law in court.

Sorry if that sounded negative - I’m still grateful for the new thread, OP, and strongly agree that we should all be keeping a close eye on this bill.

I’m just personally relaxed about not getting NC21 for the reasons I explained here and on the previous thread.

I’m certainly not opposed to some similar amendment if the HoL wants to inject some common sense, though - it’s just that I’m just not currently planning to put too much energy into this particular issue (in terms of campaigning, my focus in letters to my MP (not that she’s reading them..), etc) at the moment as I don’t think this is as catastrophic as it may seem.

Posted earlier by RexsSoupCan · Today 14:26

My MP voted no although I did write to her.
Breakdown of votes here:
https://votes.parliament.uk/votes/commons/division/2016#noes

I've not yet RTFT but I'm wondering if this Bill passing without the amendment (which seems inevitable 🤬) might well expose the utter farce behind the Passport Office and DVLA allowing people to falsify their sex on legal documents and provide a good reason to push even harder for the repeal of the GRA.

Digital ID is only as good as the data that feeds it. Surely the DVLA and Passport Office are breaking the law, irrespective of their "official processes"? Repealing the GRA would need a different approach, given it legally allows people to change their birth certificates. But I don't believe there is any law underpinning what the Passport Office and DVLA are doing.

Sex Matters on "Bad Arguements"
The new clause was voted down. This post looks at the bad arguments and flimsy excuses that were made in the debate.
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/inaccurate-sex-data-excuses-and-bad-arguments/

The argument for recording sex was clear and well put, the arguments against recording sex was the usual rubbish from the usual rubbish people.
It was good to know there were 3 Labour MP's who spoke for it though, I wish anyone of them were my MP, instead of the party drone we've got.

Of the 3 Labour MPs who seemed to agree that an amendment was needed, two abstained and one voted against it. I hope that whatever they claim is going on behind the scenes to sort this out is actually going somewhere.

I agree with you - you can extrapolate from polling that most people think a GRC is needed to change passport etc.

The NHS and public services self indemnify.
it will be business that pays the costs - and that will fall to customers/us… annoying that this farce is allowed to happen and that we will foot the bill. Argh why not be sensible and avoid all the waste of time, energy and money?

Seriously, I take it back I don't want these party drones as my MP either, especially the one who spoke for it then voted against it. 🤯

In one of the NHS policies I found this:

1.7.3 Insurance matters Employers registering staff for corporate insurance are advised to inform their underwriters if they know of a trans employee’s status, since some insurers automatically invalidate a policy if a major fact such as medical/surgical gender reassignment is not disclosed. The employer should inform the employee before disclosing this information. If an employer is unaware that an employee has a reassigned gender, the obligation to disclose falls upon the employee, who could also be held liable in the event of an accident for which no valid insurance cover exists.

So whoever mentioned insurance and the data bill may well be on to something... how could this be tested out?

Heads up that this bill is back in the House of Lords later today, probably no earlier than teatime.

Wasn't there a recent thread or news article where a woman's holiday insurance wouldn't pay out because she'd started HRT and not informed them? And another which wouldn't pay out because a doctor had merely documented their wondering about a condition which was never actually diagnosed?