# New guide: Patients who can't be identified

- Date: 2026-11-02
- Type: New
- Surface: Developer portal and CLI
- What you need to do: Nothing.
- Address: https://developers.rivr.io/changelog/2026-11-02-guide-unidentified-patients

The new guide Patients who can't be identified (/guides/unidentified-patients) covers the cases where Rivr can't look the payer up, or the person on the order isn't the patient: protected identity, personal numbers the register can't find, orders without a personal number and children whose guardian pays. The personal number, phone and email on an order all belong to the payer. Whether Rivr requires an identified payer is decided by the clinic's setting and by whether checkout has a credit check for the amount; when it does and Rivr can't identify the payer, the answer is `422` with `personal_number_not_identifiable`. A payer who isn't identified gets no invoice. The guide also says where the protection doesn't follow, how `/api/public` masks a protected customer per market, and which Swedish, Norwegian and Danish numbers the register can identify. The pages for `personal_number_not_identifiable` and `personal_number_required` now point to the guide, and the guide Patient data in your calls and webhooks now says the personal number identifies the payer.