2023-12-07 11:29:21
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has classified Schufa scoring as inadmissible if the credit agency’s customers – for example banks – decide about loans primarily based on the Schufa value. In this case it is a prohibited automated decision, the ECJ explained on Thursday in Luxembourg.
Schufa collects data from banking transactions, for example, and uses it to calculate a value for individual consumers. This can be used to estimate creditworthiness – i.e. the probability of whether someone will pay their bills. Companies such as banks, energy suppliers or credit brokers can use the Schufa value when deciding on contracts. According to its own information, Schufa has data on 68 million people in Germany.
Schufa: Don’t make any decisions yourself
A woman sued in the Wiesbaden court because she was unable to get a loan because of her low Schufa score. The administrative court submitted questions to the ECJ. The ECJ explained that it should now examine whether the German Federal Data Protection Act contains a valid exception to this ban. If there is such an exception, it must also be checked whether the European rules for data processing are met.
Franz Nestler Published/Updated: Recommendations: 5 Gerald Wagner Published/Updated: Recommendations: 18 Sebastian Reuter Published/Updated: ,
The European General Data Protection Regulation fundamentally prohibits decisions that have legal effects for those affected from being made only through the automated processing of data. The idea behind this is that a machine should not make decisions over a human. Schufa counters that it does not make any decisions itself. According to Schufa, only the companies themselves can ultimately answer whether the score is relevant.
She welcomed the verdict. It ensures clarity as to how the scores can be used in companies’ decision-making processes within the meaning of the GDPR. “The overwhelming feedback from our customers is that payment forecasts in the form of the Schufa score are important to them, but are generally not the only decisive factor in concluding a contract,” Schufa announced after the verdict.
#Schufa #score #permitted #conditions