False positive
A search result that resembles the query but refers to a different person or entity.
Updated 2026-07-26
In name screening, false positives are the normal case rather than the exception. Common names, transliteration variants and partial matches all generate hits that resolve to strangers once the identifying details are checked.
The corollary is that a hit is the beginning of the work. Date of birth, nationality, registration number and address are what separate a match from an identification, and only the authority's own record carries them authoritatively.
The reverse error is quieter and worse. No result means no match in the versions checked, not that a person is unrestricted, and this site never states the second.
Related terms
5 entries- List snapshot
- One complete downloaded version of a published list, stored with the date the source published it.
- Name match score
- A number expressing how closely a search term resembles a recorded name, and nothing more.
- Sanctions list
- An official register of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures, published by a government or an international body.
- Transliteration
- The rendering of a name from one writing system into another, which produces several valid spellings of the same name.
- Weak alias
- A name variant an authority publishes with a warning that it is too common or too partial to identify anyone on its own.
Where this appears in the data
Written for reading the records published here. This is not a legal, tax or accounting definition, and where a jurisdiction defines the term precisely, that definition governs.