Identity Matching Standards

Identity matching depends on information gathered before research begins, because identifiers cannot be added to a search that has already been completed. A search that starts with a name and a date of birth will return records that cannot be resolved when those two points are not enough to distinguish one person from another.

• Collect the full legal name, including the middle name when available. The middle name is often what separates two people who share a first and last name in the same jurisdiction. It should be recorded as it appears on a government issued document rather than as the consumer entered it on an application.
• Collect every former name. Maiden names, names changed by court order, and names used during a prior marriage determine whether a record will be located at all. A record filed under a former name will not appear in a search conducted under the current one.
• Collect the full date of birth. Date of birth carries most of the matching weight in a court index, because it is frequently the only identifier beyond the name that the index makes available.
• Collect the Social Security number where permitted, and run a trace. The trace develops address history and surfaces name variations associated with the number. It should be understood as a research tool that establishes where to search rather than as confirmation that a court record belongs to the consumer.
• Collect address history covering the search period. Address history determines which jurisdictions to search, and it may later serve as a discriminator when two people with the same name appear in the same index.
• Collect known aliases, nicknames, and spelling variants. Records are indexed as they were entered, which may include a nickname, a reversed name order, or a misspelling that a strict search will not return.

Address history determines where to search. The remaining identifiers determine whether a record found there belongs to the consumer. Both should be gathered in the same step, because a search conducted without sufficient identifiers produces results that cannot be used.

A CRA should define in advance which combination of identifiers supports a match determination, and should apply that definition the same way on every file.

• Do not match a record on name alone. Many people share a name, and a name that appears unusual in one part of the country may be common in another. A name determines which records to examine rather than whose records they are.
• Treat full name and full date of birth as the common working minimum. The FCRA does not specify identifiers, so this reflects industry practice rather than a statutory requirement. For most records in most jurisdictions, an exact match on both will support a match determination.
• Require more where the name is common in the jurisdiction searched. Name and date of birth will return several people when a name is common in a populous county. The additional identifiers should come from the record or the underlying case file rather than from inference about which record seems more likely.
• Weigh each additional identifier as it corroborates or conflicts. When a source provides a Social Security number, an address at the time of the case, or a physical descriptor, each point that agrees raises confidence and each point that disagrees lowers it. Confidence should be assessed across the full set of identifiers rather than on the strongest single point.
• Do not treat a partial match as a match. A record matching on last name and date of birth, or on first and last name with a different middle initial, has not been matched to anyone and should not be reported as the consumer’s.

Common names are ordinary casework, and the procedure for handling them should be part of routine practice rather than an exception made file by file.

• Identify the situation early. Several records carrying the same name with different dates of birth indicate a common name situation, as does an index that returns multiple near matching entries. Recognizing it at the outset determines whether additional research can still be ordered while the file is open.
• Widen the identifier set rather than narrowing the record set. Discarding the records that appear less likely substitutes a guess for a determination. Obtain more identifying information about the consumer and about each record, and allow that information to establish which records belong to whom.
• Order additional research when the jurisdiction allows it. Many courts will retrieve the case file and provide identifiers the public index does not carry, including a Social Security number, the address at the time of filing, and physical descriptors. This is the usual resolution path when index data cannot separate two people.
• Use address history as a discriminator rather than as proof. A record from a county where the consumer never lived, filed during a period when the consumer lived elsewhere, is evidence that the record belongs to someone else. It is not conclusive, because people are charged in counties where they do not reside.
• Do not report a record that cannot be resolved. When the available identifiers will not connect a common name record to the consumer, the record stays off the report.

Some jurisdictions restrict the identifying data available in public records, which limits what can be matched regardless of how careful the procedure is.

• Redacted or partial dates of birth. Some jurisdictions publish only a birth year, only a month and year, or no date at all. A name paired with a partial date will not support a match on its own, and the missing data should be sought from the case file in courts that will provide it.
• Withheld Social Security numbers. Courts generally do not publish Social Security numbers in a public index. A number developed through a trace establishes the consumer’s address history, but it does not match a court record unless the court holds the number and confirms it.
• Index only jurisdictions. Some courts publish an index and will not release the underlying case file to a third party. When the index carries insufficient identifiers and the file cannot be obtained, the record cannot be matched and should not be reported.
• Jurisdictions that restrict search criteria. California Rule of Court 2.507 requires courts to exclude date of birth and driver’s license number from the electronic index made available to the public, and in All of Us or None v. Hamrick (2021) the Court of Appeal held that a court may not permit its criminal index to be searched by date of birth. Legislation to reverse that result was vetoed in 2022. In affected California courts, resolving a name match now depends on a researcher reviewing records at the courthouse.

A conflict between the record and the consumer’s identifiers means either that the record belongs to another person or that one of the two data sets contains an error. Which of those applies should be established rather than assumed.

• Investigate a conflict before resolving it. A conflict settled by assumption has been ignored rather than resolved, and the reasoning behind it will not hold up in a dispute or an audit.
• Distinguish a variant from a discrepancy. A transposed digit, a common misspelling, a nickname, or a hyphenated name entered without the hyphen are variants in how the data was recorded. A different date of birth is a discrepancy in the data itself and should be treated as one.
• Weigh each identifier according to what it establishes. A conflicting date of birth carries more weight than a conflicting middle initial, because a middle initial is frequently omitted or entered incorrectly at intake.
• Return to the source. When the record and the consumer conflict on a material identifier, the court or issuing agency is where the conflict should be resolved. A vendor’s summary of a record is not the record.
• Do not resolve a conflict by asking the consumer to confirm it. Consumers do not always know their own record history. A denial is not evidence that the record belongs to another person, and an admission is not evidence that it belongs to the consumer.
• Leave an unresolved conflict off the report. When the conflict cannot be resolved with the sources available, the record should not be reported.

A dispute, an audit, or litigation will ask what was known at the time and what was concluded from it. An undocumented determination cannot be defended, even when it was correct.

Record the following for every record reviewed:

• The identifiers used to reach the determination
• Any additional research ordered, what it returned, and what it resolved
• Any conflict identified, and how it was resolved
• Records reviewed and not reported, with the reason
• The date each determination was made

Records reviewed and not reported belong in the documentation. They demonstrate that the standard was applied to the whole file rather than only to the records that were ultimately reported.