Across Europe, certain countries redact or omit the last names of defendants in criminal cases to protect their privacy. This practice is particularly common in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, where legal frameworks prioritize data protection and the right to be forgotten. In contrast, some judges in the UK may choose to disclose the full names of serial fraudsters or repeat offenders if it is deemed in the public interest.
For organizations conducting adverse media screening, these inconsistencies pose major challenges. If an individual’s last name is removed from a news article, it becomes significantly harder to determine whether they are a match to a known risk. This is particularly problematic for compliance teams who rely on accurate media reports to flag potential threats. However, profile enrichment and broader identity matching techniques offer a way to overcome this hurdle.
The European Approach: Protecting Privacy by Redacting Names
In several European countries, defendants in legal cases often have their last names removed or abbreviated in media reports. This is done for several reasons, primarily:
• Presumption of Innocence: Unless found guilty, an individual should not suffer unnecessary reputational damage.
• Right to be Forgotten: Even if convicted, individuals may have the right to reintegrate into society without ongoing public exposure.
• Data Protection Laws: Under laws like GDPR, personal data—including names—must be handled responsibly, and unnecessary exposure can lead to legal repercussions for publishers.
For example, in Germany, it is common practice for media reports to refer to defendants only by their first name and the first letter of their last name. A news article might read:
“The defendant, Thomas M., was found guilty of financial fraud amounting to €2 million.”
Similarly, in France, media outlets may withhold full names in sensitive cases, unless the individual is a well-known public figure. Dutch newspapers frequently follow a similar approach, redacting full names from reports on criminal cases.
For adverse media screening, this presents a serious problem. If a compliance team were scanning global media for financial fraud risks and encountered an article about “Thomas M.,” they might not be able to confirm if this matches an individual in their database. Without additional details, an important risk alert could be missed.
The UK Approach: Public Interest and the Naming of Offenders
By contrast, in the UK, judges have more discretion in deciding whether to release full names in criminal cases. Transparency and accountability are often prioritized, particularly when:
• A defendant has been convicted of serious crimes (e.g., fraud, money laundering, or violent offenses).
• The individual is a repeat offender, and there is a risk they may continue criminal activities.
• Public exposure may help prevent further crimes (e.g., identifying fraudsters in the financial sector).
For example, in high-profile fraud cases, judges may explicitly state that the full names of convicted individuals should be made public to warn others. This means compliance teams may easily find full names in UK-based news sources, making it easier to match individuals to known risks.
However, this inconsistency between UK and European practices complicates global screening efforts. A fraudster convicted in the UK may have their full name in news reports, but if they later operate in Germany or France, future reports may only refer to them by initials—making it harder to track their activities over time.
The Challenges for Adverse Media Screening
The disparities in naming conventions across jurisdictions introduce the following risks for organizations conducting due diligence:
1. Missed Risk Alerts
If a last name is redacted in a news article, an individual with a history of fraud may not be flagged during screening, leading to an incomplete risk assessment.
2. False Negatives in Screening
Compliance teams may search for an individual’s full name but fail to detect news articles that only list initials or partial identifiers.
3. Identity Ambiguity
Without a last name, distinguishing between two individuals with similar first names (e.g., “John D.” vs. “John Doe”) becomes difficult.
How Profile Enrichment Overcomes These Challenges
One of the most effective ways to counteract the impact of name redaction is through profile enrichment. By building a comprehensive and evolving profile of individuals and entities, compliance teams can rely on multiple identifiers beyond just a name, improving risk detection accuracy.
1. Expanding Beyond Name-Based Matching
• If a last name is unavailable, other attributes can confirm identity, such as: date of birth, place of residence, employment history or known aliases or nicknames.
2. Continuous Monitoring for Ongoing Data Collection
• Profiles can be enriched over time through continuous adverse media monitoring.
• If an individual is initially screened with just a name and country of birth, additional identifiers as listed above can be added as they are discovered over time through monitoring online media.
3. Linking Public and Private Data Sources
• Combining publicly available data (news articles, corporate registries) with internal compliance databases can help fill in missing gaps.
• Even if a last name is missing from a French news article, your records may list the full name and confirm their connection to the entity in question using other identifiers. For example: an article may say “Thomas M, 35, was born in Iran and has been arrested for espionage”. You may have a client on your database whose name is Thomas Matthews, was born in Iran and born in 1990. The age and place of birth references in the article can be cross referenced with the record you hold on file to also score the identity, beyond name matching where one name is not present.
4. Multilingual and Contextual Screening
• Advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) can detect indirect references to individuals, even if their names are partially redacted.
• For example, if a French article refers to “a former CEO of Company X”, an enriched profile may already link an individual to Company X, helping compliance teams draw connections.
A Future of Smarter Adverse Media Screening
As global regulations tighten compliance expectations, the ability to identify risks accurately and consistently across jurisdictions becomes increasingly crucial. The issue of name redaction highlights the complexities of screening in a fragmented regulatory landscape, where transparency and privacy often clash.
The key takeaway is that adverse media screening cannot rely solely on name-based searches. Organizations must adopt data enrichment strategies, continuous monitoring, and AI-powered identity resolution to ensure robust and accurate compliance screening.
With these approaches, compliance teams can overcome the limitations of inconsistent media reporting, ensuring they detect risks even when crucial identifying details—like last names—are missing from the record.
About smartKYC
smartKYC is the leading provider of AI-driven KYC risk screening solutions, serving financial institutions and multinational corporations worldwide. By combining artificial intelligence, linguistic and cultural sensitivity, and deep domain knowledge, smartKYC sets new standards for KYC quality, transforms productivity, and ensures compliance conformance.
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