¶ Name mismatch
When you receive a certificate there is a possibility that the name on the certificate does not match the account it has been sent to. In such cases, a name mismatch message is shown on the digital certificate page, indicating to an inspector that there may be a problem with the certificate's validity.
The mismatch could be because:
- there is a simple typo in the certificate or on your profile page.
- the certificate has been sent to the wrong recipient.
- an administrative error by the issuer.
- in the case of a personal certificate, you have not included an alias or nickname in your personal settings.
- in the case of an organisation certificate, you have not included a trading name.
- in the case of an organisation certificate, your company has had an official name change. You can contact us if you'd like a previous name added to your organisation profile.
The name mismatch algorithm does not check for an exact organisation name match. It works by removing all spaces and punctuation, ignoring case, and ignoring any instances of 'ltd', 'limited', 'plc', 'llp', 'llc', 'inc', and 'incorporated'. It then looks if one string is a subset of another, raising a mismatch if this is not the case.
¶ An example
A certificate issued in the name 'University Xyz, Department Abc' to an organisation called 'University Xyz' will not give rise to a name mismatch.
But if that was the first certificate issued, the organisation name would have been automatically set as the full university and department name. If a subsequent certificate was then issued to that organisation as "University Xyz, Department Def", a name mismatch would arise. The solution is to then edit the organisation name to just be 'University Xyz", and neither certificate will give rise to a name mismatch.