True Name – Mastercard (2022)
mastercard.com
mastercard.com
Laws in different states can make changing your legal name incredibly complicated and time consuming. Having an easy process to avoid some daily danger is wonderful for trans people, regardless of the motivation from MasterCard.
Also it's a risk for stolen credit card information. I think the vendor doesn't even get the credit card number when processing a payment, otherwise shop clerks could just take screenshots and abuse a credit card for online shopping.
I was surprised too but apparently it's a field that exists on the magstripe itself. Presumably something similar exists on EMV (for chip/contactless) as well.
I doubt that the number and the name can be read via EMC. Otherwise you could easily read strangers name in the subway by just holding your NFC Android phone close to their wallet. And HN would be full with such stories :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive#Rev...
This is also their opportunity to copy your magnetic strip and/or add a tip without your permission. (Though the latter only happened to me once, I guess the former may have happened a few times over the years it's hard to know.)
But, apart from restaurants (which continue to inexplicably swipe cards out of sight), most major retailers use chip/pin or chip/signature (and the sig is only ever checked if the salesperson feels a need, which is rare).
But how do you enter the PIN in those cases? We used to have the option to authorize payments with signature until a few years ago. But I think those cards completely vanished now.
Most retailers it’s tap/RFID or chip read, but I still run into old POS hardware that requires a mag swipe (not often - I think Visa charges the merchant more for these transactions).
EDIT - I much prefer chip/PIN and wish it were the default here. And wish all US cards had a PIN (some don’t, and those that support it usually need it enabled explicitly). This causes problems in Europe with unmanned terminals (gas stations after hours, train ticket self-service).
I think you should be safe with a NFC enabled card for now. Apple Pay for example works in most places in my experience (even all around the world, except US). Physical cards might have a limit for contactless payment somewhere between 20-100€. And not all devices have a pin pad to enter the required pin then.
I think the operators could still charge the card without a PIN, but the card owner could dispute the charge and just get the money back. That's why they don't accept it, they want to get paid, and not give away free gas.
Hotels. All of them.
Lol. No.
I have more than 20 American credit cards plus a handful of debit cards. The vast majority of can't be copied with those old carbon machines - they are not embossed.
The last time I've seen anyone use those old carbon machines was to pay for parasailing in the Caribbean in 2009.
>here they'll just ask you to put it in the chip&pin machine and authorise the deposit
Same in the US except there no PIN.
In reality way too many people will use it as a weapon when they suspect the cardholder may be transgendered.
Source: it happened to me when I first started transitioning.
>[...] New research by Mastercard across 16 countries in North America and Europe revealed that 59% of people who identity as nonbinary say they feel unsafe while shopping, and 57% say they think it’s important that companies and organizations address them in a way that respects their identity.
Is this a serious issue? I don't think anyone ever checked the name on my credit card. Even when I was carded at a liquor store, they'd only check my government id, not the credit card itself. Also for online payments I don't think the "cardholder name" field is even checked, so you can put whatever you want. Therefore I'm not sure what the point of this is, other than trying to score some PR points.
It would be nice if card issuers avoided deadnaming, but there could be an innocent explanation for why a card was issued with the wrong name.
But in most countries they don't require ID in order to make a credit card purchase.
Speaking of chip and PIN, before tap to pay became prominent, people actually never touched my card, I would insert it myself (reducing risk of fraud) enter my PIN and all the merchant cared about was whether the the machine said “approved” or “declined” after doing an online check.
A bigoted store clerk might decide to apply different standards to trans people, to find a way to kick them out of the store. So yeah, my experience is similar to yours, but I don’t doubt that credit card names could be weaponized against trans people.
(I think people should be able to use their chosen name on their credit card; I think that adds comfort to their regular interactions and daily life; I just don’t think it will act as an Uno Reverse card against someone prone to bigotry against them.)
In Toronto liquor stores, the point of sale payment terminal is on a stand, facing the customer, and you tap or use chip + pin yourself.
If you get asked, you to have to show your government ID.
Eons ago when I first started to transition I was prevented from making a purchase once because my card didn’t match my female me.
The clerk then seemingly took delight in increasing the volume of their voice when informing me.
The irony being that at work one our cute “pretty plastic people” girls used the male bosses CC all the time.
Should it matter? No, but until people evolve into human beings and leave their bigoted transphobic selves behind, anything like this can, and will, be used as a tool to embarrass and harass transgender people.
What does this mean?
If you investigate the seedy underbelly of Eastern Orthodoxy, you will find many splinter groups which claim that the main bodies have committed apostasy and lost the faith. Therefore these small, schismatic groups, sometimes with limited clergy resources, will name themselves "True Orthodox" or "Really Truly Orthodox and We Mean It This Time". Generally these groups will themselves experience schism as they quibble about trivial things, and so devolve into "Truer than True Orthodoxy" and "Old True Believers of the Truth About Cats, Dogs, and Orthodoxy".
It's a bizarre concept that someone should have a "True Name" that's truer than their legally recorded name(s) and truer still than the names which they were given by their legal parents and names which were used for them throughout their lives. A new name that someone takes for himself is commonly known as an "assumed name" or "alias".
As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
Why use a name someone else gave you if you don’t like it anymore ? What prevents us from changing it ?
An assumed name or alias is a part-time name used for a specific purpose; the definition does not extend to a new name used as an individual's full-time name.
> As Pontius Pilate was heard to remark, "What is Truth?"
And as we know, Jesus replied: "Check the dictionary."
We should do what we can to make life easier for everyone, but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
>but we should stop encouraging and accommodating this “everything makes me feel unsafe” attitude. It harms everyone when we redefine safety to include awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort.
It's pretty clear that the thing he's objecting to is the inflation of "feel unsafe" to include "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort", which might draw attention to the issue in the short term, but over the long term dilutes the term and makes the issue worse. It's like the euphemism treadmill but in reverse.
If someone says they feel unsafe, maybe we should default to believing them rather than minimising them. A tiny bit of compassion and empathy goes a long way.
Okay but surely you must agree that there are limits to how much we as a society should believe? Portraying yourself as being oppressed is an effective way to garner sympathy and resources from society, so people are incentivized to use language that makes their plight seem worse. That's not to say everyone making such claims are acting in bad faith, or even misrepresenting their internal feelings, but we can't take everyone's statements at face value either.
There are limits, but the idea that American society is too nice, or takes concerns too seriously, is beyond laughable.
In the context of this article, why not?
Why are we objecting to "the name on my credit card makes me feel uncomfortable and I wish I could change it"?
We understand that people with schizophrenia have delusions which result from their condition. Those delusions often cause them to feel unsafe. We are compassionate and seek to treat the the underlying causes, not by joining in on their delusions. Gender dysphoria is much the same--transgender activists love to confound the issue by conflating dysphoria and intersex, but these are two entirely separate conditions. I have empathy and compassion for people struggling with dysphoria, and that expresses itself in my desire to help them get better.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of incredibly violent threats, being able to not be outed publicly is critical to everyday safety for trans people.
How is allowing someone to use a different name harmful to everyone ?
> It harms everyone when we redefine safety
He is saying it harms everyone when being called by the name you don't want is redefined as unsafe because it makes it difficult to differentiate between significant issues.
How is allowing someone to use a different name harmful to everyone ?
Legally I'm Pizza. My buddies call me Za.
I don't care for my legal name and don't identify by it. I haven't legally changed it for many reasons.
I am not harmed by someone using my legal name.
Verifying someone's identity should be against a legal identity as contracts are bound to legal entity.
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And beyond the general topic discussing these things generally I've had one anecdotal incident involving such nebulous concepts of "safe". I worked at a place where HR notified us that a member of our team "did not feel safe or welcome". I had no idea what to do with this information. They obviously didn't want to identify the person, or what happened (i can understand the desire to do so) ... but then what does that mean, what of any helpful things could we even do if we don't know what is going on?
Then we got a second notice just as vague as the first about someone (it seemed to be implied it was the same person) still felt that way. This notice (sent to a few hundred people) had a more finger wagging tone to it.
At that point I was actually angry. I responded that I did not feel safe working in an environment with vague notices that someone(s), maybe, did something to make someone(s) else uncomfortable or feel something ... and that to some unknown extent I and others were now on notice in some vague way about it. Maybe I did it, heck if I know, if so what could I do!??!
Shortly after a clarification email went out that nobody was in trouble and any specific incidents would be handled with those involved only and no further group emails would go out.
Someone did leave the company not long after. I was told (not sure if it was true) they were the source of the complaints. That person was "sensitive" to the extent that they seemed upset by every little thing. They were pretty hard to be around, every day events upset them, and frankly they were an asshole too. It struck me how such nebulous language in that case allows someone to impose on others.
I suspect that someone expressing that they did not feel "safe or welcome" in such a vague way contributed to the equally vague and weird "solution" to just spam out a warning(s) to everyone. The result was absurd. It really illustrates how this kind of language can be very confusing.
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Now the Mastercard thing isn't that exactly, and I hope it helps someone. But the vague language always throws me off a bit.
It’s not for you to decide.
Step 2. Search for "transgender attack".
Step 3. Take some time to digest the horrible news you're reading.
Step 4. Try to figure out the common thread between these stories. The people in question usually get outed in public during some kind of ID check, and got jumped by some intolerant moron who witnessed it.
This is happening. Today. Including in "North America and Europe". The people who say they feel unsafe because they feel unsafe for their physical integrity and safety. Not because of "awkwardness or very minor psychological discomfort".
We should do what we can to make life easier for everyone. If that makes a majority of people aware of the suffering of a particular group, ultimately I think it helps cultivate compassion, and compassion benefits us all.
I applaud your progressive, optimistic, and compassionate position, author
Edit: I’m being told I’m misconstruing your comments and not at all what you meant
There is a growing group of people willing to confront anyone in public that is transgender, with a smaller (yet still growing) group who are emboldened enough to inflict physical harm.
Weird when compared with the tech ethos of anonymous internet transactions ( crypto for example)
Which comments are those? From my skim most people objecting to this are skeptical it works, rather than insisting that the name on the card matches your legal name.
So someone seeing the name on your card is not really a thing any more, or am I missing something?
Thankfully my bank card from a UK bank just allows you to print your preferred name on your card.
A healthy dialogue can take place because this is:
a. a first of it's kind of service
b. introduces interesting regulatory KYC challenges (I imagine)
c. is being done, by a company at scale
Might as well ignore the whole signal, and more now that anonymous and prepaid are gaining share.
> A quarter of those surveyed say they have not changed their gender marker on their formal ID, discouraged by the expensive and time-consuming process
So you change your name on your card, while having a government ID with a different name. And that’s supposed to make things less suspicious?
I mean, and this is comical, but trans people change their identity, and credit cards from last century partly outsources their fraud prevention by having merchants verify said identity. Wouldn’t it be better to, you know, remove the part where merchants have to do that? How about I authenticate with the payment provider instead of some random store clerk? I don’t want the merchant to even see my name at all. Principle of least privilege.
Apple Pay and Google Pay don't show the merchant the cardholder name IIRC, and they authenticate you with biometrics, although the merchant may still use AVS and therefore ask you for your zip code.
For readers of this site, I think it should serve as a reminder, that when designing systems, that people's name as it appears on official government documents may not be their name, and we should take care to have the systems we build recognize that.
Mastercard: "We've found that some people's name could different from what their government ID says their name is, and offer a solution for that problem"
Many HN commenters: "I don't have this problem, therefore it isn't a real problem"
Mastercard implement a local fix for the government-docs-has-wrong-name problem, that is available today. That's great! Now you can go and advocate to solve the government problem. And tbh, calling elected representatives is a much better use of our time than posting on this website.
“Cumbersome” seems like a low bar, considering how beneficial it would be for one’s desired name to match their legal name. That’s gotta be more useful than a credit card name, no? Just do the work?
what about the control group
For Emme Reynolds of Ottawa, credit and debit cards also carry with them a certain amount of stress because they’re just another opportunity in one’s day to be “deadnamed” or misgendered. “It’s wild to see how many times in a day your old name can pop up,” they say. “It’s exhausting to see the name and to be misgendered.”
really? and not hidden fees or card being lost? debit cards should be avoided if possible. no buyer protection
If you lose your card, you report it lost with a quick phonecall to your bank's dedicated security number, and that card is now dead. If someone tries to use it before you report your card, you get to dispute those charges, and if they try to use it after the card got blocked, nothing happens. Which is why you always report lost cards immediately, because you'll have a new one in at most a few days, and until then you can use online banking just fine, let that be a lesson to you to not lose your cards again. It's an important lesson.
Telling people that debit cards should be avoided is a bit like telling people that "busses should be avoided" just because where you live, bus service is terrible.