German credit agency earns millions through unlawful customer manipulation
Today, noyb has filed a complaint and report against the German credit agency SCHUFA with the Hessian data protection authority. The company appears to be making millions of euros by selling people in Germany their own data. With the help of manipulative designs, people are prevented from obtaining a free copy of their data in accordance with Article 15 GDPR – even though they would actually be legally entitled to it. The company’s primary aim appears to be to profit from people looking for accommodation. In Germany, they often have to provide proof of solvency in order to obtain a lease.
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Concealed rights. On its own website, SCHUFA only advertises its so-called “BonitätsAuskunft” for €29.95 to private individuals and claims that it offers an “advantage on the housing market”. A transparent reference to the Article 15 GDPR right to free information is not provided. Using manipulative designs, the company is trying to push the sale of paid products and even falsely presents the free information as unsuitable for submission to third parties.
Martin Baumann, data protection lawyer at noyb: “SCHUFA is falsely claiming that only its paid products can be presented to third parties. In reality, the European Court of Justice has emphasised several times that data subjects are allowed to do whatever they want with their free information."
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