GDPR & arrears

[Deleted User]

You are wrong. The law says firms must keep data for financial crime prevention reasons for at least 6 years. There is nothing in GDPR that over-rides the Money Laundering Regulations.

No one is getting their financial data removed by the CRAs under GDPR. No one.

antrobus

sargeantsalt wrote: »

...Each case will have to be considered by a judge who will decide who's rights are more important and that will vary depending on all the circumstances.

What are you on about?

You request a CRA to delete your data. CRA responds with a template letter saying 'no'. No judges involved.:)

Of course' you have the "right to make a complaint to the ICO or another supervisory authority", who might well think about it for five seconds before they send out their template letter saying 'we agree with the CRA'.

At that point, you could (or even earlier if you prefer) "seek to enforce this right through a judicial remedy". As in take it to court, when some judges would be involved.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/

Naturally that would cost you some money. I doubt that the small claims court would have jurisdiction, so you could be lumbered with paying the defendant's costs.

sargeantsalt wrote: »

... I would advise against trying unless you have plenty of money and a good lawyer...

There you go. That's what I would say as well. Therefore each case will not have to be considered by a judge. Maybe some people will give it a go. Maybe they'll be able to get some crowdfunding. Maybe they'll succeed in not having their cases struck out as frivolous, and a judge will pronounce.

sargeantsalt wrote: »

...
because poorly made requests will set precedents that could make it harder for others.

Poorly made requests won't likely make it to court in the first place. And even if they did would not set a precedent for a properly made claim.

sargeantsalt

We are basically in agreement. The law is a grey area. The CRA and the ICO will interpret it how it suits them and fob off any deletion requests unless forced to comply through the courts. I have said earlier that the costs and effort of bringing such a case would not be worth it. Especially given that winning in court would be unlikely (but not impossible).

Even if someone won a case. The government would pass a new law very fast to close any loophole.

The issue I have is that both the GDPR and the CRAs say there might be cases where they would honour a deletion request. Given that in practice they might never, ever honour a deletion request without a court order, it looks like they are not being very honest. (Are you are happy to have your data passed around by the dishonest?).

It would be better if they didn't mislead anyone and just passed a law saying every citizen must by law be recorded by CRAs whether or not they have any credit/debt or be sent to jail. The problem would be that it might make some consumers lose trust in the system and not give it their custom.

The GDPR and privacy notices, would appear to be a disingenous attempt to give consumers a false sense of security when handing over their data. It is very clear to me why some people object to it. I find it hard to understand when others do not seem to acknowlege that point of view. The law as it stands today is that it is not compulsory to be on any CRA. In practice it is compulsory through vaguely written law and collusion between those in control. It is not honest and not the British way.

PixelPound

Law is about interpretation of laws passed. You make it sound like some form of conspiracy with the talk of government acting fast to close any loophole. You seem to imply the CRA is some sort of control by the state and impeding on your freedoms.
Why is it dishonest about the deletion request - they can't know every case and so it may be options of when it can be deleted, to say otherwise would be dishonest.
GDPR is so much more than deletion, and it is a response to the exponential growth in data collecting. Before organisations could have many copies of your data and used for a whole variety of reasons without keeping you informed. Breaches probably occurred partly because data was copied and left on insecure devices.Now its all auditable.

sargeantsalt

nic_c wrote: »

Law is about interpretation of laws passed. You make it sound like some form of conspiracy with the talk of government acting fast to close any loophole. You seem to imply the CRA is some sort of control by the state and impeding on your freedoms.
Why is it dishonest about the deletion request - they can't know every case and so it may be options of when it can be deleted, to say otherwise would be dishonest.
GDPR is so much more than deletion, and it is a response to the exponential growth in data collecting. Before organisations could have many copies of your data and used for a whole variety of reasons without keeping you informed. Breaches probably occurred partly because data was copied and left on insecure devices.Now its all auditable.

A case was won some years back against marketing and within about 6 months the government passed a new law to undo it. The government act in the national interest and that is usually to assist moneymaking organisations to make more money. You cannot always expect them to care about citizens individual rights the same way. There is a huge government obsession to increase data wherever possible and the CRAs help the government's aims who scratch their backs in return. I would not call it a conspiracy to harm individuals. It is just pursuit of common interests.

Any organisation that insists on doing something that affects you that you don't want is impeding on the freedom to be left alone to go about your lawful business without interference.

CRAs do not impede on nic_c's freedom because he/she wants them to use their data but please understand that others feel differently and have no choice and so are not free.

The GDPR has brought improvements but way back before the DPA there was a legal right to confidentiality that had been established for 100's of years. The DPA introduced statutory exceptions basically running roughshod over confidentiality while calling itself "data protection".

PixelPound

sargeantsalt wrote: »

A case was won some years back against marketing and within about 6 months the government passed a new law to undo it. The government act in the national interest and that is usually to assist moneymaking organisations to make more money. You cannot always expect them to care about citizens individual rights the same way. There is a huge government obsession to increase data wherever possible and the CRAs help the government's aims who scratch their backs in return. I would not call it a conspiracy to harm individuals. It is just pursuit of common interests.

Any organisation that insists on doing something that affects you that you don't want is impeding on the freedom to be left alone to go about your lawful business without interference.

CRAs do not impede on nic_c's freedom because he/she wants them to use their data but please understand that others feel differently and have no choice and so are not free.

The GDPR has brought improvements but way back before the DPA there was a legal right to confidentiality that had been established for 100's of years. The DPA introduced statutory exceptions basically running roughshod over confidentiality while calling itself "data protection".

Well under GDPR Facebook and a few others are now being investigated because they haven't given a free choice for people to access the site without subject to their data being used for marketing and targeting ads.

The DPA was about how data was used on computers, it did not concern itself with data stored physically, GDPR is a lot more wide ranging. Before CRA's people were running up debts with one organisation and then forming new relations afterwards as if they had no debt, one of the reasons CRA was formed was to manage risk. The 100's of years the majority of people didn't have access to finance and the like. If there weren't CRA's then organisations would have started something, less open. Companies would have had data shared but would not be public access to it. If you think otherwise you would be delusional.
So other people do not want their data to be used, for what - for when they want new credit to not know they've got several defaults; to get utilities at a new property without prepay and the energy company not to know they've skipped their last property without paying.

If your data is being reported then that data then you must be using services where there is a risk, even if its to operate a bank account and it showing you are not money-laundering, or should they have confidentiality to do that.

sargeantsalt

It's fair enough for people who want to get into debt to be able to maximise their borrowing at the best rates whilst banks reduce risk. That's what CRAs are supposed to be for. That's where it should end.

What is happening lately is that CRAs are being used to share information about people who have not taken any borrowing and do not represent any risk.

What about Harry and Megan? Should they have their personal information passed about for no reason? You seem to think if borrowers are on there, everyone should be.

There is also an extension of the purposes which data is being used such as assessing job applications. This is unfair because people were not told before they handed their data over years ago that it would be used for this purpose now.

Sooner or later you will have to experience first hand a situation where you lose out because of a decision taken about you using your data in ways you do not agree with. There are plenty of examples on other threads on this forum of data misuse and the stress and misery it can cause.

I don't have anything to add , thanks for the discussion.

[Deleted User]

sargeantsalt wrote: »

It's fair enough for people who want to get into debt to be able to maximise their borrowing at the best rates whilst banks reduce risk. That's what CRAs are supposed to be for. That's where it should end.

What is happening lately is that CRAs are being used to share information about people who have not taken any borrowing and do not represent any risk.

What about Harry and Megan? Should they have their personal information passed about for no reason? You seem to think if borrowers are on there, everyone should be.

There is also an extension of the purposes which data is being used such as assessing job applications. This is unfair because people were not told before they handed their data over years ago that it would be used for this purpose now.

Sooner or later you will have to experience first hand a situation where you lose out because of a decision taken about you using your data in ways you do not agree with. There are plenty of examples on other threads on this forum of data misuse and the stress and misery it can cause.

I don't have anything to add , thanks for the discussion.

How do you know what data the CRAs have on other people? How do you know that CRAs are selling data to other 3rd parties without peoples consent? How do you know people have no borrowing but are still on the CRA database?

PixelPound

People who haven't taken any borrowing or no need for credit will have very little information on their credit file - A bank account simply reporting zero every month, no cards or loans, and I assume no utilities as they pay in advance and same with telecoms. Wherever they rent they pay the full year of their contract in advance.. They work somewhere not handling cash or customers financial details.

antrobus

sargeantsalt wrote: »

A case was won some years back against marketing and within about 6 months the government passed a new law to undo it. ...

What case? What new law?

sargeantsalt wrote: »

...What is happening lately is that CRAs are being used to share information about people who have not taken any borrowing and do not represent any risk.

No, CRAs have always been about 100% coverage. They don't exercise their judgement as to should or should not have a record. Nothing has changed 'lately' except that people are now more aware that they have a credit record and can sign up to have a look at it for free.

Besides, people "who have not taken any borrowing" are more of a risk than people who have borrowed and are up to date. A known quantity is less risk than an unknown quantity.