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Statutory Instruments of the Scottish Parliament


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SCOTTISH STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS


2005 No. 125

GENDER RECOGNITION

The Gender Recognition (Disclosure of Information) (Scotland) Order 2005

  Made 3rd March 2005 
  Laid before the Scottish Parliament 3rd March 2005 
  Coming into force 4th April 2005 

The Scottish Ministers, in exercise of the powers conferred by section 22(5), (6) and (7) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004[1], hereby make the following Order:

Citation, commencement and extent
     1.  - (1) This Order may be cited as the Gender Recognition (Disclosure of Information) (Scotland) Order 2005 and shall come into force on 4th April 2005.

    (2) This Order extends to Scotland only.

Interpretation
    
2. In this Order-

Disclosure for purpose of obtaining legal advice
     3. It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act to disclose protected information for the purpose of obtaining legal advice.

Disclosure for religious purposes
    
4.  - (1) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act for a person who acquired protected information in an official capacity in relation to an organised religion to disclose that information to any other person acting in such a capacity if the conditions set out in paragraphs (2) and (3) are met.

    (2) The disclosure is made for the purpose of enabling any person to make a decision in relation to-

    (3) The disclosure is made for the purpose of enabling any person to make a decision in relation to the matters specified in paragraph (2)(c), (d) or (e) and the person who makes the disclosure reasonably believes that the person to whom the disclosure is made may require the information in order to make a decision in a way which complies with the doctrines of the religion or avoids conflicting with the strongly held convictions of a significant number of the followers of the religion.

    (4) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act for a person who acquired protected information in an official capacity in relation to an organised religion, and who requires to make a decision in relation to the any of the matters specified in paragraph (2), to disclose that information to any person responsible for the supervision of the person making the disclosure.

Disclosure for medical purposes
    
5.  - (1) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act to disclose protected information if-

    (2) For the purposes of this article-

Credit reference agencies
     6.  - (1) It is not an offence under sections 22 of the Act to disclose protected information if-

    (2) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act for a person, when making a disclosure under paragraph (1), also to disclose information taken from an electoral register.

    (3) For the purposes of this article "credit reference agency" has the meaning given in section 145(8) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974[
8].

Insolvency and Bankruptcy
     7.  - (1) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Act to disclose protected information if-

    (2) For the purposes of this article "relevant officeholder" means-


CATHY JAMIESON
A member of the Scottish Executive

St Andrew's House, Edinburgh
3rd March 2005



EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)


Section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 ("the Act") provides that it is an offence for a person who has acquired protected information in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person. "Protected information" is defined in section 22(2) as information relating to a person who has applied for a gender recognition certificate under the Act, and which concerns that application (or a subsequent application by them), or their gender prior to being granted a full gender recognition certificate.

Section 22(4) sets out certain circumstances where disclosure of protected information does not constitute an offence (for example, where person to whom the information relates is not identifiable, or has agreed to the disclosure). This Order prescribes additional circumstances where the disclosure of protected information does not constitute an offence. These concern disclosure for the purpose of obtaining legal advice (article 3), religious purposes (article 4), disclosure for medical purposes (article 5), disclosure by or on behalf of a credit reference agency (article 6), and disclosure for purposes in relation to insolvency or bankruptcy (article 7).

In some cases, the Order requires the disclosure to include the information that a full gender recognition certificate has been issued to the person to whom the information relates ("the subject" as defined in article 2). The effect of including this information is that the person to whom the disclosure is made will not be able to disclose the information to a third person in reliance on section 22(4)(c) of the Act (which permits disclosure where the person making it does not know or believe that a full gender recognition certificate has been issued).


Notes:

[1] 2004 c.7.back

[2] 1986 c.45.back

[3] S.I. 1989/2405 (N.I. 19).back

[4] 1984 c.24.back

[5] 1954 c.61.back

[6] S.I. 1976/1213 (N.I. 22).back

[7] S.I. 2002/254.back

[8] 1974 c.39.back

[9] 1985 c.66 as amended by the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1993 (c.6).back

[10] 1986 c.46.back

[11] S.I. 2002/3150 (N.I. 14).back



ISBN 0 11 069473 2


 © Crown copyright 2005

Prepared 11 March 2005


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