Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the policy justification is for permitting a confidential DBS checking service for transgender applicants which does not disclose details of sex; and if she will make a statement.

Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) services require that applicants disclose all previous names and addresses so that they can process an application correctly and return accurate results.

The DBS provides a confidential service for transgender applicants in order to help protect their identity, via a dedicated ‘Sensitive’ application team. This process allows applicants to disclose previous gender/name information only to DBS so that the previous names are checked, but are not disclosed on the completed certificate unless criminal record information exists in that name.