Labour’s controversial digital identification scheme could see gender self-ID introduced by the back door, MPs have been warned.
Experts and women’s rights groups are concerned that the digital cards could allow people to pick their preferred gender instead of recording birth sex – despite Labour’s pledge not to introduce self-ID.
Elderly female NHS patients could be bathed by a biological man with a female ID and sex offenders who change gender after being convicted could use the scheme to mask their identity, they warn.
Professor Alice Sullivan – who carried out a Government-commissioned review of data on sex and gender –called on the Government to commit to using accurate data on biological sex.
Professor Sullivan, head of research at the University College London Social Research Institute, told the Daily Mail: ‘If data is going to be recorded on an individual it needs to be accurate and data on sex should reflect the person’s actual sex.
‘If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be recorded at all. That should just be an absolutely basic principle.
‘The concern is that if data from systems that are not recording accurate data on sex are feeding into this then it will be inaccurate in turn. And so we would need a commitment for that not to be the case.
‘The Government either needs to say this isn’t meant to record people’s sex at all, or they need to ensure it’s only coming from accurate sources.’
Hellbound and Down 