(no subject)

[sigmaleph]

I was buying bus tickets online and after putting in my national id number they autofilled with data from the previous time I'd used that website, and asked me to confirm the information was correct. which it wasn't, because my name has changed since. but the form doesn't actually allow you to change name data, because of course people's names don't change, right?

i found a workaround eventually but it was deeply frustrating.

Comments

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

Isn't the whole point of national ID numbers that people's names are non-unique and fluid? Sometimes I wonder if UI designers ever think about the questions they ask.

[sigmaleph]

Names are not very fluid here, admittedly. My understanding is that in America you can change your name for no reason beyond "I want to", and that people routinely do so in case of e.g. marriage. In Argentina married people can use their spouse's surname but do not change their name as written in their ID, and with as far as I know the only exception of trans people, changing your legal name requires convincing a judge you have a good reason.

I suspect most people, and by extension most UI designers, can easily go their entire lives without ever knowing someone to change their name.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

Using your spouse's surname without that appearing on your physical ID is wild to me.

[sigmaleph]

So I looked it up and apparently a married woman *can* ask that her husband's name be added to official ID, didn't know that. (the way married names formally work is that women use "[first name] [maiden name] de [husband's name]". casually it's not unusual to just use "[first name] [husband's name]")

But it's not necessary, and very few people do (I look at people's IDs a lot for my job, I would know if it was a common thing). And you still can request that that name be used without modifying your ID (though, again, few people do. But I've seen a few cases)

I have no idea how that law applies now in the case of same-sex marriage.