Homonymy: What is it and how is it solved? - Emptor

How many times have you wondered how the problem of homonymy is solved? Surely on more than one occasion you have had to deal with this issue. The equality of names is known as homonymy. It is a phenomenon that exists in all countries and is formed by two or more people who have the same first and last name. This means that the people who carry them have a greater probability of being confused with others. Although in most cases the problem is solved with the use of middle names or last names, there are some cases where this is not possible. In these cases, the best thing to do is to look for other methods to avoid confusion.

The RFC with homoclave in Mexico

According to Mexican laws, natural or legal persons have the obligation to pay taxes based on the economic activities they carry out. So whether they are salaried persons or with business activities in the public or private sectors, entrepreneurs, professionals or persons who work in independent activities (for fees) have the obligation to comply with each of the tax obligations according to their regime.

The first procedure must be the RFC (Federal Taxpayer Registry) and it should be noted that a unique element is the homoclave. Within the RFC, the homoclave can be identified as the last 3 digits. The reason for being is to differentiate each of the taxpayers; it is literally your digital fingerprint that differentiates you in cases of homonymy.

What is the composition of the RFC for individuals?

• The first two characters according to the paternal surname.
• The third letter corresponds to the initial of the maternal surname.
• The fourth digit corresponds to the initial of the first name.
• The first two numerical digits are the year of birth.
• The next two indicate the month of birth.
• The penultimate two digits detail the day of birth.
• And finally, the homoclave assigned by the SAT is found in the last three digits.

RFC for legal entities

• The first three letters according to the company name.
• The first two numerical digits refer to the year of creation of the company.
• The next two digits correspond to the month of the company’s founding.
• The following pair of digits detail the day of the company’s creation.
• And the homoclave is located in the last three digits of the RFC.

When you know how the RFC is structured, it is easy to verify the identity of a natural or legal person, but you must be very careful when looking for the homoclave. To obtain it, it is necessary to enter the official SAT portal.

The homoclave and its importance as a differentiator

The homoclave is a unique identifier assigned by the SAT to differentiate and provide security to each taxpayer. Having it gives us the security to avoid duplicates and homonyms. It can also be useful in case of payment of tax obligations, credit applications, payment of taxes and even for access to social security and retirement funds.

The role of complex manual reviews

Although automation and artificial intelligence have facilitated background verification in a surprising way, completely setting aside human criteria and judgment is a frequent mistake made by most background check service providers.

Without this second human filter, it is very common for what is called homonymy to occur, which is when a candidate’s name matches the spelling or pronunciation of another person who has had a criminal record, and consequently, they are erroneously and unfairly disqualified, leaving them without the opportunity to be part of the company.

Another issue that needs to be highlighted is how serious the offense found by the background check system is. It is not the same to have committed a kidnapping as to have been detained for drunk driving. When there is no human assessment as part of the process, both candidates are discarded equally. Do you consider this fair?

For this reason, at Emptor we have invested in a team of legal experts who verify the failures that our artificial intelligence system throws up and who issue the final verdict based on criteria that we have previously defined and that have proven favorable in the past. This allows us to offer the highest candidate approval rate in the region (98%) and not unnecessarily disqualify applicants.

Would you like to know how Emptor works? Request a free demo or learn more about our background checks here.