One of the reasons I feel more comfortable going as “MikeTheActuary” online is because I have such common first and last names that it’s virtually an everyday occurrence for me to encounter someone with the same first and last name as mine.
(Heck, even my wife’s name is only one letter different….)
At least I’m not the only person with such a problem…and at least I haven’t had this problem yet (from the Commercial Appeal):
Hale’s driver’s license was suspended by the department, but she learned after waiting three hours Wednesday at a state office on Summer Avenue in Memphis that it was because of a case of mistaken identity.
Hale, a federal government worker in Memphis, has the same last name, the same date of birth and a similar first name to a woman from Mississippi who failed to take care of a traffic matter in Collierville.
While I’ve never been a fan of a formal National ID card system, or of the use of National ID numbers, the imprecision we face in this data-rich world from the imprecision of other means of automated identity verification does give rise to a good argument for such schemes.