We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that the safety of the Transsexual, Transgendered, Intersex and gender-queer Communities is not placed at risk by insisting that harmful data is kept on the National ID Database and that many should carry hold 2 ID cards, identifying them as belong to both male & female genders.”
Details of Petition:
“The draft guidelines for the National ID Card as they currently stand, with regards to transsexual people and others who choose to present in the gender opposite to that of their birth assignment them to: a Apply and pay for up to four different ID cards b Have two separate ID cards before a GRC can be obtained The Database will keep a record of the birth gender, contrary to Government agreement when the GRA(2004) was passed into law. This is despite the fact that many people cannot obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) and that it is illegal to disclose whether a person is in possession of a GRC without explicit permission. 4 groups of people fall into a dangerous areas: 1 A transsexual person who has obtained a GRC 2 A transsexual person who lives full time in their acquired gender but have not yet applied for a GRC either: a Because they are not yet entitled to apply for GRC b Because they qualify to apply for a GRC, but are unable to apply for reasons such as pre-existing marriage or lack of reqrd medical evidence c Because they choose not to apply for, or are unaware of the availability of, a GRC. 3 A person who lives part time in each gender 4 A person who lives outside the gender binary.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
Thank you for your e-petition which calls on the Government to ensure that information pertaining to the transgender community to be recorded on the National Identity Register (NIR), is kept secure.
Where individuals who have registered with the Scheme and subsequently obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) notify the Identity and Passport Service to update their details on the NIR, there will be protections in place in our systems and procedures to ensure that the record of their previous gender is then protected from being disclosed in line with the provisions of the Gender Recognition Act. The Identity Cards Act makes unauthorised disclosure of information from the Register a criminal offence with a sentence of up to 2 years if convicted of a breach.
However, in line with the provision of the Gender Recognition Act, there may be occasions, for example for the prevention or detection of crime, where the disclosure of a person’s gender history may be necessary. However, it is expected that such cases would be exceptional.
As such, when an individual is using an identity card to prove their identity to an employer and a confirmation of their details is requested from the Register, their gender history would not be revealed. While a record of the person’s birth gender is kept as part of our fraud prevention measures, a person’s gender history will be very well protected within our systems and, as previously described; there is a criminal offence that reinforces our initial procedures against unauthorised disclosures.
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