2mo ago

Gender irrelevant for taking the train, top EU court rules

www.euractiv.com Gender irrelevant for taking the train, top EU court rules

French operator SNCF has previously asked passengers to self-declare as 'Monsieur' or 'Madame'.

French operator SNCF has previously asked passengers to self-declare as 'Monsieur' or 'Madame'.

The EU's top court ruled on Thursday that requiring rail passengers to declare a gender when buying a ticket is in breach of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

41 comments

Their mistake was not to add the "prefer not to say" option, now they can't collect any gender stats.
- I think it wouldn't fly either since verdict was that this is GDPR problem - there was no need to collect this info.

The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) ruled against French rail operator SNCF, which has previously required passengers to self-declare as either "Monsieur" or "Madame" when booking train tickets online, deeming it unnecessary information under the GDPR.
The case was brought by the French association Mousse, whose mission is to "campaign for justice for the LGBTQI+ community," according to its website.
Holy crap, what evil company would let this make it to court?
When a queer NGO asks you to please allow folks to book a train without entering a gender, just fucking make that change.
Ignoring them and having to go to court over it is absurd.
- Wonder if it was a weird cost thing, like it's ridiculously difficult/costly to change their ticketing infrastructure to cope with this?
  
  Probably not "ridiculously costly" but companies like cheaping out on... well, everything.

That's good news I guess? Curious to see how things develop with Germany's Deutsche Bahn.
It's a similar story there. For online tickets on Deutsche Bahn they ask questions about gender too, but you can choose a third "neutral" option. Age is another one, so they basically can tell precisely who you are with additional info as you also have to give them your name which is like... wtf I just want to go from A to B, just let me buy a stupid train ticket!!
Another thing that bugs me is how difficult it is to use public transport without installing some Apps either to pay or to navigate, look for connections. Even outside of that, it's impossible to open Deutsche Bahn Website in my Browser, which is kinda, well... let's say it does not serve the idea of "public" transport, which should be to serve the general public, easy access and no data harvesting madness including google maps. I'm so sick of it.
At least there are still a few solutions for this, but the trend is to encourage more people to "just" use the Apps I think, which is probably the biggest issue I have with this as too many just fall for it without thinking twice.
Austria is better in this regard, I can just buy tickets for where I want to go to, but the ÖBB website is similarily shit if not worse to use. At least they don't ask for info nobody needs to know.
Sorry if this went a bit off-topic, but I would be interested hearing about other countries in the EU? I guess this is a widespread phenomenon?
- Age is another one [...]
  Well, Deutsche Bahn offers discounts for people under a certain age, so the question is relevant, at least when you apply for said discount.
  
  If they’re not verifying the age, then surely a checkbox is enough?
- it's impossible to open Deutsche Bahn Website in my Browser,
  What kind of browser would that be? https://www.bahn.de/ works just fine on Firefox (uBlock and PrivacyBadger) and chromium-based browsers.
  
  I know my settings are pretty strict and I could flick a few switches to allow this and that but it's besides the point, especially concerning looking up connections and not buying anything.
  FF works for me too

Now do Ryanair too:)

Chere SNCF, je suis eune mondame, comme mon genre est non-binaire! [Liebe SNCF, ich bin eine "mondame" [Geschlechtsneutrale Alternative zu madame/monsieur, entsprechend Herr*in], da mein [soziales] Geschlecht nicht binär ist!]
Englisch: Dear SNCF, I am a "mondame", due to my gender being non-binary!
- What does the parenthetical "Herr*in" in your German comment refer to?
  
  Genderneutral version of Sir/lady/lord

In America it would have been said that asking passengers to self-declare is necessary to "Keep women safe"

Is this like the first step towards having gender-specific train cars? Does France have an issue with harassment on trains like some other countries/cultures? Or are they just being weird about gender?
- I think it’s the opposite of that. They stopped asking about the gender of the passengers.
  
  Understood, and I should have been more clear. My question was, why ask in the first place?
- It was probably just data harvesting later used for marketing optimization.
  
  I thought this was just a cynical take at first, but it prompted me to read the very brief press release attached to the OPs article. Your answer actually seems to be correct. Apologies!
  It sounds like this case was actually brought to court as a matter of unnecessary dara collection under GDPR and said if this data has no ligitimate use that it violates data minimalism requirements and should be discontinued. The rail system said they used it to tailor language used to the customer, and the courts decided that generic language could be used adequately without any gendering and to remove the question of gender.
  the Court reiterates that, for data processing to be regarded as necessary for the performance of a contract, that processing must be objectively indispensable in order to enable the proper performance of that contract. In that context, the Court finds that personalisation of the commercial communication based on presumed gender identity according to a customer’s title does not appear to be objectively indispensable in order to enable the proper performance of a rail transport contract. The railway undertaking could choose to communicate based on generic, inclusive expressions when addressing a customer, which have no correlation with the presumed gender identity of those customers. That would be a workable and less intrusive solution.
  the fundamental freedoms and rights of those customers can prevail over that legitimate [business] interest, in particular where there is a risk of discrimination on grounds of gender identity.
  It's barely over a page to read, and as someone not covered under GDPR, is very enlightening to see a court actually defend private personal party data seriously. I recommend giving it a full read to anyone interested in data protection.
- Few years back I have been attacked in a high speed train in France because of my gender. I only survived thanks to other passengers who defended me.
  
  Does France have a general problem with violence on trains? Stories like that can come from any place on earth with trains and humans.

Ah the UE tackling the real problems .
- Unironically. Excess data collection must be stopped for it threatens privacy and security.
  
  Excess data collection is a natural consequences of profit-seeking, which is something the UE forced on our national train operators, which lead to a dramatic increase in price and a crumbling infrastructure
  God damn hypocrites.
- All problems are real problems, wouldn't you agree? Some are bigger, some are smaller, they're working on the big problems and they are working on the small problems.
  Why are you bitching about this particular problem being solved? Have anything against people that see this as a problem?

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