10 ms·

I'm wondering what % of forms that ask for gender actually use that field in any way

by cleverwebble 4y ago

perbu 4y ago
Unless you actually need to use gender for something useful I'm guessing it is a GDPR violation to ask for it.
- torben-friis 4y ago
  I might be wrong but I don't think GDPR limits what information you can request, it's more about how the information is handled and the need for consent to collect it.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    From typical GDPR guidance: "If you can reasonably achieve the same purpose without the processing, you won’t have a lawful basis".
    - gardenhedge 4y ago
      The implication of your reasoning means that pronouns shouldn't be used and in a lot of cases names shouldn't be used because there are other ways to address the user.
      - lmkg 4y ago
        GDPR requires a purpose for processing. The majority of other requirements GDPR imposes attach to the purpose, rather than the processing activity. GDPR gives a lot of leeway in determining a purpose. But if you don't have a purpose, then the processing is unlawful regardless of literally anything else you've done or not done. Not even with valid consent of the data subject (because, guess what, consent attaches to the purpose). So if you say "we need this data for addressing communications to the data subject," that's a purpose. On the other hand, if sex gets stored in a DB column and never used, that's a violation. Separately, GDPR has a Data Minimization requirement: you collect data for a purpose, could you achieve that purpose with less data? This one has some flex to it. If the answer is "we could but not as well," then the data has a purpose. Maybe not a great purpose, but it's something.
        gardenhedge 4y ago
        I am not sure why you're explaining GDPR to me.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Violates the principle of data minimization, but I'm not sure if its on its own a violation that can result in an enforcement action.
  - Akronymus 4y ago
    In german, grammatical genders matter a lot. And, well, that extends to people as well.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  I'm not sure why this was voted down? This is Personal Information and so the data processor must have a specific reason why they need it, and must take appropriate steps to secure it. They can't just capture it "In case we need it later" nor can they just store it haphazardly because it's not valuable to them, or refuse to update it because that's difficult.
csours 4y ago
Or in any meaningful way.
xigoi 4y ago
Knowing the gender is necessary to produce grammatical sentences in many languages.
- rjh29 4y ago
  That would be pronouns, not gender, right?
  - nicky0 4y ago
    No becauase in some language the forms of words used to describe people vary depending on whether the person is male or female. It's not just a case of picking the right pronouns, it's the gender agreement of the other parts of speech too.
    - danShumway 4y ago
      Do you have an example? Most languages I've seen that do this seem to be deriving gendered word variants from the pronoun, at least as far as I can tell with my very limited experience. Spanish has a lot of word variants based on feminine/masculine/plural subjects, but it's not really based on gender (otherwise inanimate objects wouldn't have those variants); as far as I can tell with my limited Spanish experience they're based on word agreement in the sentence with the pronouns or at most with masculine/feminine presentation. Is there ever a scenario where, "el gata" would be correct in Spanish? "Gato" agrees with the "el" pronoun; it's not based on the gender identity of the noun independently of the pronoun, is it? Are there other languages that work differently? This also seems like a problem that doesn't really require knowledge of gender identity as much as "do you want us to use masculine/feminine variants of words when referring to you?" -- something that seems easy enough to guess based on the pronoun or (when loading up a language translation that needs more advanced logic) to just outright ask the user. I kind of hate the software trend towards "we need to derive everything we're doing from first principles"; I feel like a lot of these problems could be solved by saying, "when we encounter an edge case we'll ask what to do, rather than doing data collection up-front that will be irrelevant for the majority of users."

I'm wondering what % of forms that ask for gender actually use that field in any way

perbu 4y ago

Unless you actually need to use gender for something useful I'm guessing it is a GDPR violation to ask for it.

torben-friis 4y ago
I might be wrong but I don't think GDPR limits what information you can request, it's more about how the information is handled and the need for consent to collect it.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  From typical GDPR guidance: "If you can reasonably achieve the same purpose without the processing, you won’t have a lawful basis".
  - gardenhedge 4y ago
    The implication of your reasoning means that pronouns shouldn't be used and in a lot of cases names shouldn't be used because there are other ways to address the user.
    - lmkg 4y ago
      GDPR requires a purpose for processing. The majority of other requirements GDPR imposes attach to the purpose, rather than the processing activity. GDPR gives a lot of leeway in determining a purpose. But if you don't have a purpose, then the processing is unlawful regardless of literally anything else you've done or not done. Not even with valid consent of the data subject (because, guess what, consent attaches to the purpose). So if you say "we need this data for addressing communications to the data subject," that's a purpose. On the other hand, if sex gets stored in a DB column and never used, that's a violation. Separately, GDPR has a Data Minimization requirement: you collect data for a purpose, could you achieve that purpose with less data? This one has some flex to it. If the answer is "we could but not as well," then the data has a purpose. Maybe not a great purpose, but it's something.
      - gardenhedge 4y ago
        I am not sure why you're explaining GDPR to me.
nibbleshifter 4y ago
Violates the principle of data minimization, but I'm not sure if its on its own a violation that can result in an enforcement action.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  In german, grammatical genders matter a lot. And, well, that extends to people as well.
tialaramex 4y ago
I'm not sure why this was voted down? This is Personal Information and so the data processor must have a specific reason why they need it, and must take appropriate steps to secure it. They can't just capture it "In case we need it later" nor can they just store it haphazardly because it's not valuable to them, or refuse to update it because that's difficult.

csours 4y ago

Or in any meaningful way.

xigoi 4y ago

Knowing the gender is necessary to produce grammatical sentences in many languages.

rjh29 4y ago
That would be pronouns, not gender, right?
- nicky0 4y ago
  No becauase in some language the forms of words used to describe people vary depending on whether the person is male or female. It's not just a case of picking the right pronouns, it's the gender agreement of the other parts of speech too.
  - danShumway 4y ago
    Do you have an example? Most languages I've seen that do this seem to be deriving gendered word variants from the pronoun, at least as far as I can tell with my very limited experience. Spanish has a lot of word variants based on feminine/masculine/plural subjects, but it's not really based on gender (otherwise inanimate objects wouldn't have those variants); as far as I can tell with my limited Spanish experience they're based on word agreement in the sentence with the pronouns or at most with masculine/feminine presentation. Is there ever a scenario where, "el gata" would be correct in Spanish? "Gato" agrees with the "el" pronoun; it's not based on the gender identity of the noun independently of the pronoun, is it? Are there other languages that work differently? This also seems like a problem that doesn't really require knowledge of gender identity as much as "do you want us to use masculine/feminine variants of words when referring to you?" -- something that seems easy enough to guess based on the pronoun or (when loading up a language translation that needs more advanced logic) to just outright ask the user. I kind of hate the software trend towards "we need to derive everything we're doing from first principles"; I feel like a lot of these problems could be solved by saying, "when we encounter an edge case we'll ask what to do, rather than doing data collection up-front that will be irrelevant for the majority of users."