>Here at my job we have a database modeler in our group. He is insistent that all tables use 'Natural Keys' and not surrogate keys. I am not trying to start a battle or anything, but is this really even still a debate? It does not matter how much logical reason I provide him, he is propagating his plan across the company and it does not seem to matter what the impact will be. This is a global company in 140 countries with data centers all over the world.
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>My only questions is: Has something changed and I missed it? We are talking about values that users see and will want to change being used as primary keys on the tables.

What changed is the retirement age. I guess this guy missed the window and now has to do extra time...

I'd OK what he says, but would lay the responsibility on him for all the trouble. First, he should ensure the behavior of these keys - to be unique, immutable, protected etc.

Publicly visible keys are OK in many cases - you got barcodes and various abbreviations on at least half the items within a meter from yourself - but making them primary and/or editable is a recipe for trouble.