The learner's date of birth
The date of birth is optional. Given, certo later compares it and the name with the learner's identity check, and the certificate says whether they match.
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The Date of birth column in your batch is optional. Leave it empty and the certificate works exactly the same. Fill it in and the certificate can later show whether it belongs to the person who checked their identity on certo.
It never changes the claim
A learner always claims your certificate with a code e-mailed to the address on their row. They are never asked for their date of birth, and a date you give can never stop them claiming. See How learners claim a certificate.
What giving it adds
Your certificate names the learner as you wrote them. Learners do not have to check their identity to claim it, so on its own the certificate says nothing about who the person really is.
Some learners check their identity later, for example when they take the full passport. Once they do, certo compares the name and date of birth you gave with the ones their identity check read. The certificate then carries one of these lines:
| What the certificate says | When |
|---|---|
| Name and date of birth match the identity check | They are the same, or a person at certo decided it is the same person. |
| certo is comparing the name and date of birth with the identity check | They differ, and a person at certo is looking at it. |
| Name or date of birth differ from the identity check | A person at certo decided it is not the same person. |
| Nothing | You gave no date of birth, or the learner has not checked their identity. |
The learner sees the line on their own certificate. An employer the learner approves sees it too. A stranger looking at the public passport does not.
When they differ
A small difference is common: a second first name, a married name, a typo. So a difference is never decided by a machine alone. A person at certo sees the name you gave and the name the identity check read, and decides whether it is the same person. They never see the date itself.
Whatever they decide, the certificate keeps the name you issued it under. certo never rewrites a certificate to the name from the identity check.
How the date is kept
certo does not store the date of birth you send. It keeps only a one-way fingerprint of the name and the date together, which can be compared with the identity check but cannot be read back as a date. Nobody at certo, and no reader of the certificate, sees the date you gave.
Writing the date
Write dates as YYYY-MM-DD, for example 1990-04-03. The batch also reads:
- 1990/04/03 and 1990.04.03, year first.
- 03.04.1990, with dots, read day first.
It refuses anything it cannot read for certain: a date with slashes or dashes where the day and the month could be swapped, a two-digit year, a date in the future or one before 1900. The cell says what is wrong, and nothing is issued until you fix it.