Know Your Rights When Reporting or Witnessing a Crime

As of May 2026, Police Scotland ask every person who reports or witnesses a crime for data about their “sex” and their “trans status”. See below for our short guide on your rights when answering these questions.

We’ve also produced a longer guide in collaboration with SCALP on your rights as a trans person when interacting with Police Scotland in other ways, such as if you are searched or arrested, which you can find here.

What will Police Scotland ask when I report or witness a crime and do I have to answer?

When reporting or witnessing a crime, you’ll be asked to disclose:

your “sex” (which Police Scotland define as your sex as assigned at birth, regardless of whether you have a gender recognition certificate), and
your “trans status” (whether you are trans or not).

You are not legally required to disclose your sex or your trans status to the police when reporting or witnessing a crime. These questions are voluntary.

If you do decide to share this information, you can request to answer these questions in private. The “trans status” question does not give you an opportunity for you to share how you identify, just to say whether you are trans or not.

If you are trans and choose to disclose your sex assigned at birth when reporting or witnessing a crime, Police Scotland staff should still refer to you respectfully, using the name and pronouns you ask them to. However they may not proactively ask you about this, and you may need to repeat them to different members of staff that you interact with.

Can I report a crime anonymously?

Yes, you can report domestic abuse, hate crime, stalking and harassment anonymously using Police Scotland’s online reporting form here. You can also call the 101 non-emergency line and state that you wish to report a crime anonymously.

Reporting a crime anonymously limits Police Scotland’s ability to follow up with you about your reporting, and complicates the prosecution of a crime. However, it will still contribute to statistics around types of crime in Scotland.

You can find our more information about hate crime law in Scotland, including reporting transphobic hate crime, on the Equality Network website here.

What information do I have to share?

There are some circumstances where you are legally required to give the police your personal details, such as if you are arrested.

However, the details you are required to give are limited to your name, address, date and place of birth, and nationality.

Police Scotland do not have legal powers to compel you to tell them your “sex at birth” or trans status in these situations. More information on this can be found in the guide we produced with SCALP.

Do the Police share my information with anyone else?

Any information you do share with Police Scotland will be stored across their databases and will be subject to the Data Protection Act 2018. The police can share your data with their “partners” (e.g. NHS Scotland). You can submit a Subject Access Request to get a copy of the personal information the police hold about you, but this will require also sharing identity documents with them in order to prove who you are.

Why do the Police ask about sex assigned at birth and trans status?

Police Scotland conducted a “sex and gender data review” across 2025 – 2026. One part of this work was considering how they collected data from those reporting, witnessing or accused of crime. We advocated strongly for Police Scotland to collect information relating to people’s lived gender identity, unless there were compelling reasons not to – in line with the Chief Statistician for Scotland’s guidance. Despite our contributions, a decision was taken to ask for the “sex at birth”, on a voluntary basis, of all people interacting with the Police.

Police Scotland’s Standard Operating Procedure on Data Protection says that “Officers and Staff should only collect personal data that they actually need to properly deliver Police Scotland’s specified purposes and should not collect additional unnecessary information.”

There may be a small number of crimes where collecting this data could be considered necessary, such as sexual offences. But in most instances we don’t think this would be the case, particularly not for those people reporting or witnessing crimes. This is why the questions are voluntary, and you aren’t required to answer them.

You can read our: