[ad_1]
Andrea Böhm is still following the aftermath. A few years ago, under unfortunate circumstances, he fell into personal bankruptcy. Since then, the woman who doesn’t want to read her real name in the newspaper has beaten herself up and is now back on her two feet. But the problems did not end there. Because your Schufa score, the credit worthiness value that the credit bureau calculates for you, is so bad, you can hardly get contracts and loans. He had to search for his apartment for months, and he even needed a guarantor.
The “Schufa Check Now” offer, which the credit bureau is currently testing together with the telephone provider Telefónica / O2, sounds like a real help. The deal: The credit bureau wants to review consumers’ bank statements, see if they look better than the score suggests, and give them a second chance on the contract. According to Schufa, the data for this is only saved for the purpose and very briefly. In the current test run, no data is saved.
But after the investigation of NDR, WDR and Süddeutscher Zeitung it’s just a small selection of great plans. As can be seen from the internal documents, the Schufa apparently pursues the goal of this service to obtain a detailed overview of millions of bank statements. This knowledge could potentially flow into some kind of super score. To the detriment of consumers, as privacy advocates fear.
The current test with Telefónica shows how the Wiesbaden credit agency could obtain data. There is a small box on the website that consumers can voluntarily check. It would be a click with great impact. With it, the client gives permission to the credit bureau to read his account statements, store this data for twelve months and theoretically develop his own products from them. Schufa emphasizes that no data is saved in the current test phase. “Therefore, we are currently unable to provide any information on the subsequent design of the final product.”
The Schufa receives information on salary, maintenance payments, but also garden and welfare expenses.
What a look at the details of the personal account can reveal, which they obviously know very well at the Schufa. This year, for example, the sales manager of a subsidiary made a presentation to some potential customers. On one slide it showed twelve categories and 65 subcategories that could be selected. This includes, for example, salary, maintenance payments, home improvement and gardening expenses, electricity, gas, insurance or welfare. In addition, so-called “risk factors” can be recognized, for example gambling or payments to debt collection agencies. What Schufa wants to do with this data for twelve months, he did not want to say on demand.
Privacy advocates are appalled. Peter Schaar, Federal Data Protection Officer from 2003 to 2013, suspects that no one can “overlook the true scope of this consent.” With permission you get “really naked,” says Schaar. He fears that such complete personality profiles will emerge, to the detriment of consumers. “If someone participates in any gambling online, it certainly won’t have a positive effect on their creditworthiness,” he says. Schaar fears that the customer not only does not get a cell phone contract, but “does not have an insurance or credit contract either.”
Thilo Weichert, the data protection officer of the state of Schleswig-Holstein until 2015, also considers this to be “very problematic”. Highly sensitive data is used here exclusively in the interest of the company, without the data subject being able to understand it: “For me, this is really a horror.”
Until now, the Schufa has not known neither the income nor the assets of the people.
The plans would go far beyond what the Schufa has been doing so far. She herself says that she does not know people’s income or wealth. With a glance at the account or with the help of data donation, as could be done through the little box, that would suddenly change.
Internal documents and appearances in recent months suggest what plans the Schufa has been forging since 2018. That’s when it bought Fin Api. The Munich startup has a big advantage: it has a license from the financial supervisory authority Bafin to read accounts, which is legally possible due to an EU directive. Even before the purchase, a document is shown that played with the idea of a continuous inspection of the account and a regular transfer and storage of data in Schufa to “calculate the scores for each request”.
It will be more specific in a presentation in 2019. There, the Schufa lists some suggestions under the item “current product development approaches”: “New scores, supplementing existing scores with additional indicators, as well as account management scores, integrated scores , various affinity scores. ” Which means that the Schufa could recognize and evaluate consumer preferences.
Almost two years later, on November 4, the “Schufa Check Now” project went online as a website, including the small box for voluntary consent for a data donation. Spicy: While Schufa employees email each other a day before the pilot starts: “Fingers crossed for the solution to fly”, the responsible state data protection officers in Bavaria still have no idea. You won’t find out about the test until the day after the site goes online. The State Data Protection Supervision Office is examining the matter. However, the agency’s director, Michael Will, was skeptical, for example about whether this combination of companies was “so legitimate, so acceptable.” There are “two different business models that we are dealing with here.”
Upon request, Telefónica / O2 announced that they were testing the acceptance of this procedure “only in a pilot project” with a reduced number of users. Participation is voluntary. Schufa is responsible for data protection law.
For many questions, the Schufa refers to legal requirements and a press release. It says that consent to “Schufa Check Now”, as well as further data processing, is voluntary. Furthermore, the data processing of account statements only takes place “if the consumer expressly and independently of the actual service gives his separate consent”. La Schufa did not explain what advantage customers have from such data donation that has nothing to do with service.
