The new Data (Use and Access) Bill, currently in the final stages of Parliament, brings back some of the previous government’s chaotic Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which fell with last year’s General Election. This Bill is a bit of a grab-bag of data-related issues, and as socialists we should be critical of its promise to “improve public services and boost UK economy by £10 billion”. But there is a particular concern for trans people and their allies – coming along with the many attacks on trans people, including the Supreme Court’s recent catastrophic ruling.

Presented as “making people’s lives easier” and to “help people securely prove who they are without having to present physical documents”, new Digital Verification Services – to be operated, in true neo-liberal fashion, by registered providers (companies) – will – for a fee – verify someone’s identity and other data uses including proof of right to rent, right to work, and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks required for work with children and vulnerable adults.

This may seem rather technical, but to carry out these digital checks, these companies will have access to personal data – including data about personal identity. Worse, much of this data is held by public authorities, and DVS providers will be able to request this data without the normal obligation of confidence by the public authority.

A shady transphobic pressure group called “Sex Matters” jumped on the opportunity to try to enforce digital identity to mean biological sex at birth rather than gender. They tried, through stooge Tory MPs, to insert a New Clause 21 to the Bill which would also have required public authorities to trawl through all of their data looking for any hint of recognition of trans people. This was decisively rejected by the House of Commons, voting on party lines, Labour for once recognising the danger.

But trans-haters are not deterred by democratic votes by mere MPs. They tried again by getting the House of Lords to move a back-door amendment to the ironically-numbered Clause 28 of the Bill. This would have forced public authorities to record “sex data” specified as “male or female only based on sex at birth”. Again the House of Commons rejected this.

The danger may be over – for now. But the threat has not gone. The Bill grants undemocratic “Henry VIII powers” which allow ministers to make important changes with practically no democratic oversight. The details of a “digital trust framework” in Clause 28 are left to the discretion of the government, including perhaps requirements similar to the ones so clearly rejected by elected representatives. The Open Rights Group has a useful summary of these threats.

We will be watching out for threats to the digital rights of trans people – and of all our rights, as AI and technology increasingly controls our lives. In this context, Labour government policy, like its predecessors, remains firmly rooted in technological rationality.

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