I 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.
stevoski
Oh, 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.
snickerer
This 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.
Aozora7
This scares me! Denial of service (in some cases you may not even have an alternative), in some cases custody, et cetera and that too based on a false positive or a flimsy match. And no one doubles checks it, no one bothers to make sure, and they are allowed to do that! All this is actual legal and no one pays for it once it's found out, and even if you have suffered. None.
And heaven's forbid if your actual ID and references (i.e you) have ended up in such places (or such list/s) by mistake or malice.
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.
areoform
This 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.
frereubu
I believe this real Sean Byrne should move into Sligo for a while, just to spice it up a little. Then they can also ask to be removed from the list as the person on the list.
necovek
The 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.
Cider9986
You 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 ...
kazinator
One 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.
comments (10)
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.
stevoski
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.
snickerer
Aozora7
And heaven's forbid if your actual ID and references (i.e you) have ended up in such places (or such list/s) by mistake or malice.
shelled
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.
areoform
frereubu
necovek
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.
Cider9986
Think of how manny John Smiths there are?
How can this be the company started by Wozniak and Jobs ...
kazinator
martinclayton