Protected Characteristics in Practice: web banner

With funding from The Legal Education Foundation (TLEF), we are exploring how protected characteristics of people using digital public services are collected and published by UK government. The project runs from October–December 2019

As more services go digital, they still need to meet legal requirements around discrimination – in the same way as non-digital services.

Unfortunately there is no accepted practice for collecting and publishing data about who uses digital services, which makes it hard to tell whether they discriminate or not.

In this short discovery project, funded by TLEF, the ODI is exploring good practice and implementation – predominantly in the public sector – for collecting sensitive data about who uses digital services, so that both public and private-sector organisations can meet their equality obligations.

Our approach

We will be interviewing people from different stakeholder groups including government, digital transformation practitioners and community, regulatory and advocacy bodies. We will then produce a short, accessible report based on our engagement, desk research and interviews.

Get involved

If this is an area you are currently involved in, or it is of interest please get in contact.