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Comment by marcus_holmes

We used to call this the "Scunthorpe problem" - how do you filter for obviously rude names while still allowing people to have their actual names? Bearing in mind that some people's names are actually rude.

I worked on the application form processing for the Nectar card launch in the UK back in the early 2000's, and we had several cases. Luckily we had human data-entry clerks in the loop, so all we had to do was flag when a name contained anything on the "Scunthorpe list" and get a human to look at it. Even then it wasn't perfect and a few slipped through. One of the early PR messes of the launch was someone getting a Nectar card issued with a rude name, and of course they immediately went to the press with it [0]

I'm interested to see they still haven't solved this [1]

[0] I never saw the journalistic interest in this: this guy said his name was <rude name>, and then signed the form to say everything on the form was true. Why is anyone surprised or interested that we accepted his name was what he said it was and gave him a card in that name?

[1] https://metro.co.uk/2015/02/20/woman-refused-sainsburys-nect...

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