First Name, Last Name: How Identity Verification Became the Bane of my Existence
Hi there, today I want to talk about my frustrations with identification in tech and how our technology currently accepts or collects user data for identification purposes. The prime example here would be just user registration forms, on 99% of today’s platforms.
The Self-imposed Limitations of Current Systems
Our current systems tend to ask people for a “first name” and “last name”, and our systems (computerized or not) tend to do some funny form of composition in order to generate a full name. In my opinion, they could just ask the foremost authority: the person who answers to those names.
While this arbitrary composition works well for many cases, there is a significant enough population for whom it doesn’t. The system ends up referring to its users in ways that are less than satisfactory.
Something that should be obvious is that everybody has a full name. This is the basic common ground our systems should start from. If the system actually requires it, just ask the user for their names as they are on the birth certificate, and they will give you that. However, a full name in no way tells you what the user would like you to call them, and how they would like to be called also depends on who is doing the calling.
Cultural Differences in Naming Conventions
Naming conventions and formats vary conspicuously across different cultures. For example, some cultures have the notion of a “family name”, a name that every member of the family shares. That family name may come in the first or last position or in the middle, whatever it is. Some people may have 4 names, 3, or just 2.
An interesting case study would be Cameroon, where there is a French-speaking population and an English-speaking one, divided in roughly a 70:30 ratio, respectively. For most of the anglophone citizens, the family name, which Europeans or Americans would refer to as “last name”, tends to come last when they write out their full names. Conversely, for the Francophones, this “last name” will generally come first.
And I’m actually using these terms loosely because they will mean different things in different cultures, they may or may not even exist in certain cultures. Each name has a different significance and label to it, depending on the culture where it is from. There are cultures where the last name of a person is their father’s name or mother’s name with a certain suffix. For some others, the last name is a tribute to the namee’s godparent (or just a significant person to the namee’s parents). The possible quirks in naming are very many.
The Discretion of the User
Another thing I’ve noticed is that for most of the systems that request first and last names from users, these names actually don’t matter to the system. They are not unique in the system. They are not usually tied to identification. Usually, what the system needs, is a way to refer to the user in communications between the system and user. This issue can be solved by requesting a username.
There exist a few cases where the system will need to publicly refer to a user. The system should also ask the user to give that information to them, rather than arbitrarily spinning something up. If I get a certification from some system and they make a public post about it or print out a certificate, I would like to either choose the name on the certificate or have my actual full name on it, in the right order.
A Case Study: Cameroon
In my country, the majority is French-speaking, and in general, their last names or family names come first in the order of names. Across the country, the tendency is that in public services, the system will ask for your names in a disjointed first-name-and-last-name fashion, and the majority of the processes are run according to the French-speaking system. The result is many cases of anglophone citizens having name mismatches between their birth certificates and public documents.
Right now, what happens, roughly speaking, is that for some anglophone people, public systems will have their last names in the first position, and their first names in the last position. It could range from mildly displeasing to inconvenient if the order of your names is botched on a public document. It’s a failure, but it is what it is.
I observed that some anglophone citizens in these situations will choose to enter all their names in either the slot for “first name” or the slot for “last name” on any form. They just enter their full names in one of these slots and leave the other empty. However, another name composition issue comes in where these systems now have your full name, with “not applicable” or “N/A” as a prefix or suffix. This is a little better but still not ideal, the only benefit being that your names are in the right order.
Personal Experience with LinkedIn Verification
With the previous context, let’s move on to my passport and how putting my full name in the “last name” slot and leaving the “first name” slot empty became a problem.
So on LinkedIn, I’ve been trying to get my profile verified, to increase my success in the job market. LinkedIn uses a third party called Persona for verification, and Persona requires that I scan my international passport in order to verify my information. That makes sense.
However, they absolutely require a first name and they absolutely require a last name. So what happens is that when I scan my passport, the “first name” is empty. The “last name” has my full name. Persona tells me the passport is invalid because they cannot see a first name and unfortunately, there’s no way I can edit it to add that first name in. So what happens, you ask? I cannot complete my verification. The only thing I’m going to have to do is reach out to their customer support.
The Quirks of Social Media Names
I created a social media account and I wanted my display name to be “Evil Genius”, I decided to enter “Evil” as “first name” and “Genius” as “last name”, hoping that they’re going to compose it as “Evil Genius” as opposed to “Genius Evil”, “Evil”, or “Genius”. I wasn’t warned that it was up to their discretion to pick what name to call me or show other users in notifications or posts.
Imagine my disappointment when I opened the page, just to be greeted by “Hello, Evil”. Doesn’t sound as funny as “Evil Genius”, does it?
Suggestions for Improvement
All these issues with naming conventions being decided by the systems rather than by the user hurt people’s sensitivities, cause issues with integrating identification between different systems, and just make the systems inconvenient for users. I would suggest:
- just sticking with asking for usernames
- asking the user how they would like to be referred to in public communications and in bilateral dealings with the system
- If the user’s real full name is required, ask for that, rather than composing something up.
This would save the operators of the system the trouble of having to compose these names, along with the inconveniences discussed above. The feelings and the happiness of the users are protected, and everybody is happy.
