Secretary of State writes to Sex Matters supporters about the data bill

On Friday (16th May) we received a letter from the Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, which he asked us to share with our supporters and people who have written to him about the accuracy of sex data in relation to digital identities. 

The government’s position has moved during the debate. Ministers now recognise there are issues here, and say that data accuracy is important.

But this letter from the Secretary of State is contradictory: it acknowledges that passport data cannot be used to prove a person’s “biological sex” but also states that the digital verification system will not “change the evidence that individuals rely on to prove things about themselves”; in other words that people will be able to prove their “passport sex” digitally. This doesn’t add up: passports can’t be used to prove sex but the DVS will use passports to prove sex? 

The government has welcomed the clarity of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers case, yet seems to be clinging onto the idea that “sex” and “biological sex” are two different things.

This is wrong in law, as well as completely impractical. If the government gives a trustmark to a system which verifies a person’s sex as male or female, that should have the normal meaning that ordinary people understand.

From a data protection and privacy point of view, if an organisation has a reason to collect data on people’s sex, then it is their sex that that it needs to know!

We have written back to Peter Kyle asking him to think again, and to provide concrete reassurance that the government will take action to solve the issue.

There is a straightforward answer here: digital identity should draw sex data directly from the birth register and avoid unreliable data sources. 

If the Data Bill passes without any specific safeguards for sex data the government will need to address the issue with secondary legislation or by publishing a “supplementary code”. It cannot kick this can down the road indefinitely. 

If the digital verification system does not accurately verify sex, it will breach data protection laws and the Equality Act. 

The bill is being debated again in the Lords this afternoon (19th May), and we hope that the government will take this opportunity to provide more answers.