Sexual Orientation (Australia)

Detects references to sexual orientation disclosure in Australian documents: the phrase "sexual orientation" itself, LGBTQ+ status fields, explicit identification statements, and same-sex partner/spouse references. Sexual orientation is a protected attribute under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) — adverse action or discrimination on this basis is unlawful, making its disclosure sensitive regardless of format. Topic-grade detector, low confidence by design.

Type

keyword_list

Engine

universal

Confidence

low

Confidence justification

Low by design. Sexual orientation has no fixed format, so it is detected purely by topic vocabulary. The bare word "orientation" appears constantly in non-sensitive prose (employee orientation, building orientation); the regex is scoped to full disclosure phrases only, and hits should be paired with corroborative keywords (LGBTQ, partner, pride) to raise precision.

Jurisdictions

au

Regulations

Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth)

Frameworks

ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2

Data categories

pii

Scope

broad

Risk rating

7

Pattern

(?i)\b(?:sexual\s+orientations?|LGBTQ\+?\s+status|identifies\s+as\s+(?:gay|lesbian|bisexual|transgender)|same-sex\s+(?:partner|spouse)|gender\s+identity\s+disclosure|coming\s+out\s+as)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

LGBTQ, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, partner, pride

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• HR file notes the employee's sexual orientation as part of the diversity survey. — Sexual orientation phrase present
• The profile lists LGBTQ+ status alongside other demographic fields. — LGBTQ+ status field present
• He mentioned coming out as gay to his manager last year. — Coming out as / identifies as gay terms present
• The intake form notes that she identifies as bisexual under optional demographic questions. — Identifies as bisexual term present

Should not match

• The new employee orientation begins Monday morning. — Near-miss ("orientation" alone), no sexual-orientation disclosure
• The building's orientation faces north for solar efficiency. — Unrelated "orientation" (architectural), no disclosure vocabulary
• The team celebrated Pride month with a company-wide event. — Topical mention ("Pride"), no personal disclosure phrase

Known false positives

• The bare word "orientation" appears in unrelated contexts (employee orientation, building/map orientation) that have nothing to do with sexual orientation. Mitigation: The regex targets full disclosure phrases ("sexual orientation", "LGBTQ+ status", "identifies as gay") rather than the bare word "orientation"; require corroborative keywords (LGBTQ, partner, pride) for confidence.
• "Coming out as" can appear in non-disclosure prose unrelated to sexual orientation (e.g. "the album is coming out as a double LP", "the report is coming out as scheduled"). Mitigation: Require corroborative keywords (LGBTQ, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, partner, pride) within the proximity window to confirm a personal-disclosure context.

References

• Sex Discrimination — Australian Human Rights Commission