You must take every reasonable step to update or remove data that is inaccurate or incomplete. Individuals have the right to request that you erase or rectify erroneous data that relates to them, and you must do so within a month.

Ask yourself whether your set of responses is sufficient to allow for an accurate response from all individuals.

For example, if you are collecting sexual orientation data with response options of ‘Gay’, ‘Bi’, and ‘Queer’ only, there is no accurate option for respondents who are asexual or heterosexual (as well as others).

In very rare circumstances it may be necessary to collect data on the gender people were assigned at birth, or their legal gender marker. These two pieces of data will not always align for an individual e.g. for a trans person who has updated their legal sex marker on their documents.

You should be absolutely certain that this data is required for your purpose, and that there is no alternative. For example, knowing the gender marker held by HMRC for an employee may be necessary for payroll purposes.

In this circumstance, you should add a supplementary question to the gender question above, which explicitly asks this question:

• ‘What gender were you assigned at birth?’or
• 'What is your legal sex/gender marker on your [insert document here]?' or
• ‘What is your legal sex marker as held by HMRC?’ (for payroll purposes)

You should allow a free text response where possible. The following set of response options should be used if you absolutely require a limited set of options for your purpose.

• Male
• Female
• Other (where permitted for your purpose)
• Prefer not to say (where permitted for your purpose)

You should be clear at the point of collection what this data will be used for, and who will have access to it, as it can be highly sensitive data for some individuals. This data should be held in the strictest confidence. Access to, or disclosure of, this information could result in 'outing' a trans person with significant impact on their wellbeing and safety.

You should never ask these questions without also asking for gender data as set out in the section above, as it suggests that you do not consider the gender people identify as valid. This question should be asked as a subsequent follow-up question only, and only when absolutely necessary.

An individual's sexual orientation denotes the set of people that they may be sexually attracted to. Some common sexual orientations include gay, lesbian, bi, heterosexual, and asexual.

(Note: Being trans is not a sexual orientation, or a gender identity.)

Best-practice questions for collecting sexual orientation data are:

• ‘What is your sexual orientation?’
• 'How do you identify your sexual orientation?’
• A field labelled 'Sexual Orientation'

You should allow a free text response where possible. This allows all individuals to enter an accurate description of their identity, and avoids othering identities which are not included in a limited set.

The following minimum set of response options can be used if you absolutely require a limited set of options for your purpose.

• Asexual / Asexual Spectrum
• Bi / Bisexual / Bi+
• Gay / Lesbian
• Heterosexual / Straight
• Queer
• Other
• Choose not to define
• Prefer not to say

In addition to sexual orientation, individuals have a romantic orientation. An individual's romantic orientation denotes the set of people that they may be romantically attracted to. Romantic orientations follow the naming conventions for sexual orientations, and include homoromantic, biromantic, heteroromantic, and aromantic.

For this reason, and because trans and intersex individuals may identify as heterosexual, you should not conflate a response of heterosexual with an individual not being part of the LGBTQUIA+ community.

You should be clear at the point of collection what this data will be used for, and who will have access to it, as it can be highly sensitive data for some individuals. This data should be held in the strictest confidence. Access to, or disclosure of, this information could result in 'outing' an LGBTQUIA+ person with significant impact on their wellbeing and safety.

Trans people identify as a gender different to that they were assigned at birth. Cis people identify as the gender that they were assigned at birth.

Best-practice questions for collecting cis/trans identity data are:

• ‘Do you identify as trans?’
• 'Are you a trans person?'

The following set of response options should be used in each case.

• Yes
• No
• Prefer not to say

Some individuals who meet the simplified definition of trans above may not identify as a trans person. Therefore, if you are using a descriptive question such as ‘Do you identify as the gender you were assigned at birth?’ you should take care not to conflate all 'No' responses with trans individuals.

You should be clear at the point of collection what this data will be used for, and who will have access to it, as it can be highly sensitive data for some individuals. This data should be held in the strictest confidence. Access to, or disclosure of, this information could result in 'outing' an LGBTQUIA+ person with significant impact on their wellbeing and safety.

Some people use gendered titles such as Mr, Miss, and Mrs, whilst others use non-gendered titles such as Mx., or use no title. Others use academic titles, military titles, aristocratic titles and so on. This means that a full set of response options may become quite long, and you may wish to consider using a free text response, especially as it is rare to need to categorise people by title data.

Best-practice questions for collecting title data are:

• ‘What title do you use?’
• ‘What is your title?’
• A field labelled 'Title'

You may want to consider using a free text response (ensuring that it accepts a blank entry for those who use no title, or has an accompanying tickbox to indicate this), however the following minimum set of response options can be used if you require a limited set of options for your purpose.

• Baron
• Dame
• Dr
• Judge
• Lady
• Lord
• Miss
• Mr
• Mrs
• Ms
• Mx
• No title
• Professor
• Professor Dame
• Professor Lord
• Professor Sir
• Rabbi
• Reverend
• Reverend Dr
• Reverend Professor
• Sir

You should ensure as a minimum that the set of possible responses includes Mx and the ability to indicate that you do not use a title.

Pronouns are words that you use in place of a noun, like someone’s name. You can find out more about pronouns, gendered and gender-neutral, inthis introductory guide to pronouns.

Best practice questions for collecting pronouns data are:

• 'What pronouns do you use?'
• 'What pronouns would you like to be addressed with?'
• A field labelled 'Pronouns'

You may want to consider using a free text response, however the following minimum set of response options should be used if you absolutely require a limited set of options for your purpose.

• she/her/hers
• he/him/his
• they/them/theirs
• ey/em/eirs
• xe/xem/xyrs
• ze/zir/zirs
• ze/hir/hirs
• no pronouns
• other pronouns (with the option to specify where possible)
• prefer not to say

Where possible, the option should exist to select more than one set of pronouns.

Note that we have simply used 'pronouns' and not the term 'preferred pronouns' which you may have seen used elsewhere, as the use of 'preferred' suggests that the correct pronouns to address someone with are simply a preference, and that their pronouns may not be respected.

The name a person uses may not match their legal name. For example, they may use their middle name, an Anglicised version of their name, or have changed their name socially but not legally.

You should only ask for a person's legal name if it is absolutely necessary, and it should always be accompanied with a question that asks for the name they use. Collecting legal name data without preferred name data suggests you do not recognise the name they use as valid.

Best practice questions for collecting name data are:

• 'What is your name?'
• 'What name should we use to refer to you?'
• A field labelled 'Name'

Where at all possible you should add a clarifying note to confirm that the name given does not have to be their legal name i.e. 'This does not need to be your legal name.'

If you must also collect legal name data (for example, for payroll or travel purposes), you should ask for this explicitly i.e. 'What is your legal name?' and explain why it is required, how the data will be used, and who will have access to it i.e. 'We must book the airline tickets using travellers' legal names. It will be stored confidentially for access/use by the department's administrative team only, and erased when no longer required.'

An intersex person is someone whose innate anatomy or physiology differs from contemporary cultural stereotypes of what constitutes typical male and female bodies. This could include variations in chromosomes, gonads, or hormones.

However, not everyone who meets this definition will be aware of their intersex status, or use the term 'intersex' for themselves.

Best practice questions for collecting intersex status data are:

• 'Are you intersex?'

The following set of response options should be used:

• Yes
• No
• Prefer not to say

As some people may be unaware of the term 'intersex', you should add a clarifying note that includes a definition of what it means to be intersex, as above. You can find out more about intersex data collection with interACT's 'Intersex Data Collection: Your Guide to Question Design'.