{"id":356042,"date":"2026-01-06T23:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/356042\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T23:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T23:49:12","slug":"statement-on-the-charity-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/356042\/","title":{"rendered":"Statement on the Charity Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Good Law Project has said that the Charity Commission has opened an \u201cinvestigation\u201d into Sex Matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A routine regulatory compliance case was opened a year ago in response to complaints made in relation to data collection when we tweeted a call for women to tell us about their experiences of men in women\u2019s sport.<\/a> The Charity Commission said that given the complaints received, and because Sex Matters is a newly registered charity, it was \u201ckeen to ensure the Charity is operating as effectively as it can and that the trustees are taking appropriate steps to protect its reputation\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Charity Commission asked the charity\u2019s Board of Trustees for information and it promptly supplied it. We are awaiting its response.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are confident that we are not unlawfully processing personal data when we undertake research and report on the impact of men in women\u2019s sports. You can read more:<\/p>\n

The Charity Commission undertakes around 5,000 investigations<\/a> a year into regulatory concerns as part of its routine work with charities. These are not Statutory Inquiries into serious concerns (of which there are around hundred or so a year), such as the investigation into Mermaids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

GLP has also linked us to remarks made by Richard Dunstan. We are not in any way linked to those remarks, and we did not know about them until GLP brought them to public attention.<\/p>\n

Background to the complaint<\/p>\n

In October 2024 Sex Matters tweeted a call for women to tell us about their experiences of men in women\u2019s sport.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Following that tweet we received five complaints, including one that came in an email headed \u201cLegal Letter\u201d<\/a> from the Good Law Project itself. It said it was writing to us because it was concerned that we \u201cmay be unlawfully processing personal data and\/or special category data as part of your work to \u2018map the trans identified males that are competing in women\u2019s sport in the UK\u2019\u201d. It said the letter was \u201cwritten outside the specific requirements (but within the spirit) of the relevant pre-action protocols\u201d.<\/p>\n

As a duty bearer under the UK\u2019s data-protection regulations and a regulated charity we take our responsibilities seriously, and regularly review our policies and processes. The charity\u2019s board is responsible for setting and approving policies, and the CEO is responsible for implementing them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We replied to the Good Law Project at the time of their complaint with information about our policies and did not hear back from them on their threat of legal action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Good Law Project has said that the Charity Commission has opened an \u201cinvestigation\u201d into Sex Matters.\u00a0 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-356042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}