in 1979 the home office had begun to take quiet steps to address this gender discrimination by allowing british citizen mothers to register children born abroad at the local british consulate within one year of birth, just as british citizen fathers could. however, the change was without great publicity and was largely unnoticed, and in 2002, parliament formalized the approach in law, by enacting amendments to the british nationality act 1981 allowing children who had been covered by the 1979 procedural change (because they were under 18 years old at that time) to register themselves at any point later in life. the class of eligible registrants was later expanded in 2009, and was upheld by a 2018 uk supreme court ruling.