Attention everyone. Many inaccuracies exist in databases for several reasons:
GIGO - Garbage in, Garbage out.
Bad Algorithms - Matching software tries to determine if person A1 and person A2 are the same person. About Half the time they can’t determine the answer one way or the other.
About Half the time they can determine “definitely yes” or “definitely no”.
But it is a judgment call as to how many matching criteria are used to determine “yes” or “no”.
The result is a high percentage of factual errors in databases. The credit bureaus are a good example. Equifax seems to have a higher rate of factual errors than the other 2 big credit bureaus. That probably means their matching algorithm is looser in its matching requirements. For example, a customer of Equifax can purchase a list of millions of names to do a telemarketing campaign and discover the list is nearly useless because so many phone numbers have been incorrectly matched.
Just because you read it on the internet doesn’t make it so. Just because it exists in somebody’s database doesn’t make it so.
Just wait til we have the healthcare database and get these mis-matches. Men with hystorectomies because their name is Sue, etc.
That'll be: "Men given hystorectomies because their name is Sue, etc."