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POST Payee names and privacy

 

 

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"Payment identity relates to the issue of the correct identification of payment counterparties. Personally, I think this is much more complicated than it sounds… This raises real issues to do with privacy and these need to be carefully thought through to avoid a Chernobyl of personal information downstream"

 

From "World class coffee morning with PaymentsUK | Consult Hyperion".

 

 

 

 

I noticed that one of the comments on that thread contained the obvious and sensible suggestion that people be allowed to create payment identifiers that are unrelated to to other personally identifiable information.

Indeed. Back in 2015 I said that “my personal preference would be to start work on looking at the idea of ‘payment names’ so that someone could send money to £dgwbirch”. It wasn’t a new idea even then. Back in 2012 I even explained how to fund the system: 

In the general case, payers should enter the payee’s “Pay Name” (e.g., £dgwbirch or £chyp.com or £donations@oxfam or whatever) rather than a mobile phone number. The Payments Council should sell vanity Pay Names to fund the development of the system and to keep it free to users. I’m sure some far eastern oligarch will cheerfully stump up a million or two to own £007 and I’m sure that even in these straightened time the forward-thinking finance director of Consult Hyperion could be persuaded to spend a few quid on £chyp.com and so on.

Xxx

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