A misspelt name on a certificate: correct and reissue, never edit

Why a certificate has no edit

A certificate is a record, not a view. The words printed on it are copied into the certificate at the moment it is issued, and the issuer's Ed25519 signature covers exactly those words. If the name could be edited afterwards, the signature would no longer match what the page says, and a verification page would have no way to distinguish a correction made by the registrar from a change made by someone else.

The W3C data model for verifiable credentials draws the same distinction in other words: verifiability shows that a credential has not been altered since it was issued, and it does not imply that the claims inside it are true. A misspelt name is a claim that was recorded wrongly, and correcting it is a new statement by the issuer, not a repair of the old one.

The sequence: correct and reissue

Emitcert's action is called Correct and reissue. It creates a second certificate from the same design, with the original's grant day, already filled in with everything the record said. Only the wrong words are retyped. The first certificate is withdrawn in favour of the second, and the two point at each other.

• The correction states which certificate it replaces.
• The original's page says that it was replaced and hands the reader over to the new one.
• The new certificate keeps the first one's grant day, so the record does not suggest that the qualification was awarded later than it was.

What happens to the old link

The old link is on paper that nobody can recall: a printed diploma, a signed letter, a PDF already attached to an application. A withdrawal that led nowhere would leave the reader of that paper facing a page that says the certificate is withdrawn and nothing more, which reads as a rejection. For that reason the old page always forwards to the replacement.

The writes are ordered to fail safely. The correction is inserted first and the original is withdrawn afterwards, so an interruption in between leaves the original standing rather than leaving the graduate with nothing.

When a withdrawal itself was the mistake

A certificate may be withdrawn by error. An administrator can reverse that withdrawal. The reversal is deliberately restricted to administrators, because an organisation that withdraws and reinstates at will is one whose withdrawals mean nothing to a reader. It is also refused for a certificate that a correction has replaced, since two valid certificates saying different things about the same person is the state the correction exists to end.

What to tell the graduate

Two sentences are enough: that the certificate carried an error in the name, and that a corrected certificate has been issued and replaces it. Attach the new link, ask the graduate to use it from then on, and confirm that the earlier link will point to the new one. For graduates who had listed the certificate on a profile, see our guide to adding a certificate to LinkedIn.

A checklist

1. Confirm the correct spelling against the register, not against the e-mail that reported the error.
2. Use Correct and reissue; do not issue an unrelated second certificate.
3. Check that the new certificate shows the original grant day.
4. Send the graduate the new link and say that the old link forwards to it.
5. Keep the record of the correction; our guide to record retention explains for how long.