[TMM2K]

Surely this is illegal? As a company why would you even want to know. What is an HR department going to do with this information?

The only use of this must be some kind of discrimination, right? Like "Oh you're in a same-sex relationship, remind us to not give you any time off if your partner goes to the hospital."

So gross.

[meheleventyone]

The non-creepy answer is that companies want to make sure they’re getting a diverse set of applicants and without asking they can’t find out. They’d want to track that in case they’re doing something unintentional or not that stops people from applying.

Whether this is the best way, should be allowed and so on is another thing though! In particular because it gives cover to people that would use it in a discriminatory manner.