The informal name for the 2017 UK law pardoning men convicted under old anti-gay laws is the Alan Turing law.
It refers to provisions in the Policing and Crime Act 2017, rather than being the Act’s formal title. The measure provided posthumous pardons and a process for living people to have eligible convictions disregarded. It applied to England and Wales, with Northern Ireland included through later provisions.
The name honours Alan Turing, the wartime codebreaker and computing pioneer. Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after acknowledging a relationship with another man. He received a royal pardon in 2013, and his case helped inspire the broader campaign for pardons.
A common mix-up is calling it the Equality Act or assuming every conviction under an old law qualified. The scheme excluded conduct that remained criminal, such as rape, underage sex, and certain public-sex offences. Scotland later enacted its own related legislation in 2018.