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- stevoskiI once met an Irish person who was detained at Beirut Airport when (trying to) leave the country, and who then disappeared into the Lebanese prison system. Really, he just disappeared.Luckily he was allowed to make a call just after being detained, to his friend who worked for the British Council in Beirut. The friend was tirelessly in searching for him and seeking his release. It wasn’t easy.(I met him just after his release, while he was building the courage to try again to leave the country.)Why was he detained? Because his common Irish first name and common Irish surname matched someone on an Interpol list.
- martinclaytonOne option might be for the real Sean Byrne to move to the address in Sligo of the fictitious one, then ask to be removed from the Entity List on the grounds that he is a real person. I think that wouldn't work, and could be life-changing in a bad way, but it's an idea.
- Aozora7This is one of the obvious consequences of not having a national identity number assigned to everyone at birth, which exist in most developed countries, except for anglosphere, for some reason.
- Cider9986The App Store as the only way to install apps is the worst part about iOS and why I'll never use it again.I'm always helping friends with piracy and I have to tell them they can't conveniently use a native app because it isn't listed on the App Store.And then there's the removal of ICE apps.It's too much control. On iOS, if the government banned Signal, Apple could enforce it. On GrapheneOS, you can use whatever app from anywhere no matter what.
- dcminterI got temporarily banned from the Sun Java Forums years and years ago because of something like this. I tried creating a few test accounts and it seemed to be the first name, not even the full name, that was the "match" ! I assume someone on the list had an alias of just "Dave" or "David" and whoever implemented the filter had just done the easiest thing possible.Not really a life-altering inconvenience, and the other forum members got sufficiently uppity that they re-reviewed it and let me back in, but it was a good lesson in how big orgs have no innate common sense.
- bambaxThe reason Apple or Google or Microsoft don't care one way or the other is their directors rarely if ever suffer from their policies. We should try to make them.The way to retaliate against those stupid lists and the stupid way they are enforced by US companies could be to register a fake company with principals named Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Donald Trump, etc. (and many other people with less well-known names, but high up in various organizations) and somehow get that company and all its employees' names on a sanctions list?Not sure what it would take to work, but it would probably be fun.
- snickererOh, the classic Tuttle <-> Buttle name confusion!I always remember the movie Brazil when I have to interact with a stupid cybernetic apparatus like every big company, where simple programs are the brain and low-paid humans are the actuators.
- frereubuThis has been going on for a long time. In the early 2000s I knew someone with the relatively common name Ian Smith who was routinely held up in airports because someone else with that name was on a watch list. I think in the end he managed to get some kind of stamp in his passport that officially said "not that Ian Smith", and it seems mad this isn't easier to resolve these days.
- areoformSomething like this happened to me and it has cost me $20k+ over time, https://areoform.wordpress.com/2021/08/06/on-apples-expanded...Mercury unblocked my accounts because their founder is a very kind man who bothered to verify what the document actually says rather than falling back to, "Computer says no." But everywhere else? De nada. Computer says no.And it's not even me. It's a fuzzy match with someone in their 50s. Doesn't matter. Computer says no.And I can't "get off the list" because it's not me who's on the list. The computer will always say no.In the long run, I'll be fine. I think. But I'll pay $100k+ by the time it's over. These systems are being steadily expanded, as the dumbest incarnations of themselves. We've gone from Thin Thread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread to crappy fuzzy matches on shoddy data executed on with 0 diligence. It's the stupidest possible timeline.I think many, many other people will be sharing our fate soon, which is partly why I've been writing about this slow rolling train wreck in motion in bits and pieces.
- kazinatorYou can't seriously match people on first and last name and claim "fully matched".Think of how manny John Smiths there are?How can this be the company started by Wozniak and Jobs ...
- saejoxNot exactly the same still i would like to share my horror story.Google decided to ban my many years old account. Reason: account created by computer program. Likely flagged me because i use multiple computer and connect from other wifi.Whats worse is i am a monetized youtube partner with million+ views. Youtube support (@TeamYoutube) just say "it is a google problem"All appeals are handled by bots, there is no way to reach an actual human being.We are being controlled by our ai overlords. Some bot on some cpu can ruin your life on a whim.
- bitladBackground check softwares do this too.Some of the low cost options now a days do not have human in the loop. They often miss obvious red flags or do too much false positives.
- zhivotaHonestly the best thing to do might be to change your name at this point. I'm glad my name is not common, this kind of issue is going to only get worse in the future.
- anonundefined
- bryanrasmussen>The Robert Johnson they kept being confused with wasn’t a man named Robert Johnson. It was a known alias of someone convicted of plotting to bomb a Hindu temple and a cinema in TorontoAlso, sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads, so you gotta be careful.
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