Specifications

Identity Matching

When it is not clearly the same person, the system stops and asks a human — it does not guess.

What it ensures

Deciding that a record belongs to this applicant — and not to someone who merely shares a name and an approximate date of birth — is a judgment, not a calculation. This control does not pretend to make that judgment. What it guarantees is the procedure around it: an ambiguous match is escalated to a person rather than silently attached.

This is the mixed-file scenario behind some of the largest accuracy verdicts. The harm happens in the gap between a plausible match and a verified one, and the control’s job is to make sure nothing crosses that gap automatically.

Watch it run

A criminal record surfaces that may belong to the applicant — but the identifiers are a close, not certain, match.

Illustrative run — one case moving through the Identity Matching specification.

Match assessment Attached Escalated Not matched
Permitted transition Forbidden move Start Terminal state
The match assessment forks three ways — a clear match attaches, an ambiguous one escalates to a person, no match is discarded. The move the law forbids, in dashed red, is attaching a match that was escalated as uncertain.
✕ Auto-attach ✕ Attach anyway 1 ✓ Candidate 2 ✓ Ambiguous 3 ✓ Human review
Ready

A record is proposed as belonging to the applicant, on the strength of its identifiers.

  1. Ready

    The candidate record

    A criminal record surfaces under a similar name. It might be the applicant. It might be someone else.

  2. Permitted

    Not certain

    Name matches; date of birth is close; the rest doesn’t resolve it. This is the gap where the harm happens.

    Where it comes from

    The §1681e(b) duty of “reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” governs exactly this moment — the space between a plausible match and a verified one.

    What it satisfies

    Surfacing the uncertainty rather than resolving it silently is the first thing the accuracy duty asks for.

    FCRA §1681e(b) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates. U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗
  3. Blocked

    The wrong move

    Attaching the record is locally reasonable and the report would read cleanly. It is also where the largest accuracy verdicts come from. An ambiguous match may not attach on its own.

    Where it comes from

    A misattributed criminal record — the “mixed file” — is the classic willful-accuracy fact pattern. The system cannot decide the match is right; it can refuse to let an uncertain one attach by itself.

    What it satisfies

    Refusing the auto-attach governs the procedure §1681e(b) requires — it is not a verdict on the match. Williams v. First Advantage produced a $250,000 compensatory and $1 million punitive award on exactly this error.

    FCRA §1681e(b) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates. U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗ Williams v. First Advantage (11th Cir. 2020) Case Williams v. First Advantage LNS Screening Solutions, Inc., 947 F.3d 735 (11th Cir. 2020) A background report twice attributed another person’s criminal records to an employment applicant (a “mixed file”). A jury found a willful violation of the §1681e(b) maximum-possible-accuracy duty; the Eleventh Circuit affirmed liability and the $250,000 compensatory award and allowed $1 million in punitive damages.
  4. Routed

    Routed to a person

    The call the law reserves for judgment goes to a person — not buried, but flagged as uncertain. The engine governs who decides and how, not what they decide.

    Where it comes from

    This is the boundary the position paper draws: bright-line obligations are gated; reasonableness judgments are routed to the party the law assigns them to, with proof that they were.

    What it satisfies

    Routing the ambiguous match and recording it is the assurance available here — “the right party decided, through the required step,” not “the decision was correct.”

    FCRA §1681e(b) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates. U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗
  5. Blocked

    Attach after escalation

    Once a match is escalated as uncertain, it can’t be quietly attached around the reviewer. The pull-back to “attached” is refused.

    What it satisfies

    Forbidden transition: an escalated match may not move to attached without the human determination §1681e(b) reserves for it.

    FCRA §1681e(b) Statute 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates. U.S. Code · Cornell LII ↗
  6. On the record

    The proof

    The file shows the match was uncertain and a person resolved it. That record is the difference between a defensible procedure and a mixed file.

Why it holds

Why it holds

The system never claims to know whose record this is — that would be the very overreach the accuracy duty punishes. What holds is narrower and stronger: there is no path by which an uncertain match attaches without a person. Reliability here isn’t a better guess; it’s that the guess is never allowed to stand in for a judgment.

Why it matters

A misattributed criminal record is the classic willful-accuracy fact pattern — Williams v. First Advantage produced a $250,000 compensatory and $1 million punitive award on exactly this shape of error.