Abstract
Data protection has become an increasingly important aspect of consumer policy in recent years in Germany. One of the most interesting subjects under discussion was that of scoring. Scoring attempts to give a prognosis as to whether a consumer is willing and able to repay a given kind of credit. While the USA already had specific regulations on scoring, there was no such equivalent in Germany, especially with regard to consumer rights on transparency. In 2009, the German parliament approved a specific regulation under the Data Protection Act on scoring which came into effect on 1 April 2010. This new law set standards for scoring and granted transparency rights to consumers. One of the effects has been that large numbers of consumers have since availed of these new rights and addressed scoring agencies in order to receive information on their scores.
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Notes
The full text of the new provision is to be found in the materials of the German parliament at BT-DRS 16/10529,p 1; an English version of the Federal Data Protection Act is published at www.bfdi.bund.de/cln_111/EN/DataProtectionActs/DataProtectionActs_node.html.
In Germany, credit agencies are private enterprises and not state-run agencies. Only the Schufa company with their internet service named www.meineSchufa.de, provide some service and transparency for consumers. Approximately 90% of German consumers only have so-called positive data registered under their name, meaning that their credit history is without problems. But this leads to approximately 6 million persons with so-called negative data, such as records of late or nonpayments. Normally, basic data like name, date of birth, address, bank accounts, credit contracts, credit cards, mobile phone contracts, leasing contracts, are registered, but not income and assets (www.schufa.de/unternehmen).
www.vzbv.de/mediapics/scoring_studie_15_01_2008.pdf; Stiftung Warentest, Test 03/03, Blackbox Schufa; Finanztest 07/08, Falsche Eintragungen korrigieren.
www.bmelv.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/379976/publicationFile/22 725/ErhoehungDatenschutzniveau.pdf.
As has been decided also by some courts, OLG Hamburg, AfP 2004, p. 554; OLG Düsseldorf, DUD 2004, p.173.
Provided by GP Forschungsgruppe, Institut für Grundlagen- und Programmforschung München, 2009.
In the USA, under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, factors like race, colour, religion, origin and sex are not to be used when making credit decisions; age may only be used to protect consumers.
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Metz, R. Scoring: New Legislation in Germany. J Consum Policy 35, 297–305 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-012-9191-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-012-9191-z