Credit Card - Initial Offers & Right To Be Forgotten

thundyuk

Hi,
I'm sure you're all very familiar with those initial offers such as Virgin Money and MBNA offer for cash advances for up to 21 months at 0% APR with just an initial fee. I've noticed you never see these offers again no matter how well you maintain your account or how time passes.
So I was thinking can you use the right to be forgotten to have your information purged (obviously after clearing any debt) and then re-apply for the initial offer?

D3xt3r5L4b

No. 

Financial institutions have legitimate reasons to retain your information for an unspecified period of time. 

PRAISETHESUN

Using the same arguement, why not just request your right to be forgotten after you've racked up a huge debt and defaulted on it? The default will be gone, and then you can request a new card so you can do it again? 

Sarcasm aside, banks have a legal obligation to collect and store financial data for a prescribed period. That legal obligation is one of the things that can override your right to be forgotten, and will undoubtedly scupper your plan. See: https://gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/

thundyuk

PRAISETHESUN said:

Using the same arguement, why not just request your right to be forgotten after you've racked up a huge debt and defaulted on it? The default will be gone, and then you can request a new card so you can do it again? 

Because if you had an outstanding account with them the reason for not being able to do that would be obvious - they still have a right to keep your information as you are still in business with them. However as you no longer have any business with them at all once you've cleared your debt why should they have a right to keep your personal information?

But it seems they've got that zipped up huh.

[Deleted User]

thundyuk said:

PRAISETHESUN said:

Using the same arguement, why not just request your right to be forgotten after you've racked up a huge debt and defaulted on it? The default will be gone, and then you can request a new card so you can do it again? 

Because if you had an outstanding account with them the reason for not being able to do that would be obvious - they still have a right to keep your information as you are still in business with them. However as you no longer have any business with them at all once you've cleared your debt why should they have a right to keep your personal information?

But it seems they've got that zipped up huh.

They have a right to keep your data for reasonable commercial purposes, for as long as they want to. A company can decide it never, ever wants to lend again to someone who defaults, and there is nothing you can do about them keeping your details. And quite right too. 
Anyway, surely someone who wants to game the system and then moan about the record keeping of the very same banks is a huge hypocrite, no?

Sandtree

camelot1971 said:

thundyuk said:

PRAISETHESUN said:

Using the same arguement, why not just request your right to be forgotten after you've racked up a huge debt and defaulted on it? The default will be gone, and then you can request a new card so you can do it again? 

Because if you had an outstanding account with them the reason for not being able to do that would be obvious - they still have a right to keep your information as you are still in business with them. However as you no longer have any business with them at all once you've cleared your debt why should they have a right to keep your personal information?

But it seems they've got that zipped up huh.

They have a right to keep your data for reasonable commercial purposes, for as long as they want to. A company can decide it never, ever wants to lend again to someone who defaults, and there is nothing you can do about them keeping your details. And quite right too. 

They do have a right to retain data for reasonable commercial purposes but not simply for as "long as they want" but for as long as those purposes continue to exist. They cannot keep it forever just in case they change their stance on something in the future (eg AmEx MR offers changing from "not held another MR card in 6 months" to "not ever held an MR card")

As to the OP - your right, new customer offers tend to only be offered to new customers, little need to offer them to existing customers. Some companies do offer these things as a "once in a life time" however others will reoffer if you close all your accounts down with them any wait 6-12 months. The offer may tell you the period (certainly AmEx used to point out it was over 6 months) but others may not.

funkycredit

D3xt3r5L4b said:

No. 

Financial institutions have legitimate reasons to retain your information for an unspecified period of time. 

Incorrect - they only have a right whilst it's relevant. If you close your account then it's no longer relevant to process data. The bank can retain it for HMRC / Regulatory purposes but that's still usually only 6 years since closure!

SpreadableToast

funkycredit said:

D3xt3r5L4b said:

No. 

Financial institutions have legitimate reasons to retain your information for an unspecified period of time. 

Incorrect - they only have a right whilst it's relevant. If you close your account then it's no longer relevant to process data. The bank can retain it for HMRC / Regulatory purposes but that's still usually only 6 years since closure!

And in this particular case they DO have a legitimate (relevant) reason to retain this data basically forever.

Chino

SpreadableToast said:

And in this particular case they DO have a legitimate (relevant) reason to retain this data basically forever.

What gives you that idea?
Right to erasure

[Deleted User]

Chino said:

SpreadableToast said:

And in this particular case they DO have a legitimate (relevant) reason to retain this data basically forever.

What gives you that idea?
Right to erasure

If you defaulted on a debt, the company has the right to keep your data to ensure you can't do that again. You don't have any rights to erasure for things like that, or financial crime prevention etc. 

eskbanker

Financial institutions are required to publish their data policies, typically under 'privacy', explaining their uses of personal data, including how long they retain it for.

In terms of the two mentioned by OP, Virgin are cagey about specific details of retention periods, directing readers to their data protection officer, but MBNA are more transparent, explaining their stance of up to (or more than!) ten years after ceasing to be a group customer at https://www.mbna.co.uk/privacy.html#5

5. How long we keep your personal information

This section explains how long we may keep your information for and why

We will keep your personal information for as long as you are a customer of Lloyds Banking Group.

We may keep your data for up to 10 years after you stop being a customer. The reasons we may do this are:

• To respond to a question or complaint, or to show whether we gave you fair treatment.
• To study customer data as part of our own internal research.
• To obey rules that apply to us about keeping records. For example, the Money Laundering Regulations require us to retain certain data for a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 years.

 

We may also keep your data for longer than 10 years if we cannot delete it for legal, regulatory or technical reasons. As an example, we have to hold pension transfer information indefinitely; and in cases of subsidence* we will keep insurance claims data for up to 15 years after you stop being a customer.

We will only use your personal information for those purposes and will make sure that your privacy is protected.

* Subsidence is when a building becomes unsafe or damaged by ground sinking around it.

If they claim such rights on the basis of legal or regulatory compliance, then IMHO it's highly likely that they'd assert these reasons would outrank customers' attempts to insist on erasure - that's not to say that the ICO would agree though, but perhaps worth noting that https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-to-get-your-data-deleted/ specifically refers to financial regulations:

When can the organisation say no?

The organisation can refuse to erase your data in the following circumstances:

• When keeping your data is necessary for reasons of freedom of expression and information (this includes journalism and academic, artistic and literary purposes).
• When the organisation is legally obliged to keep hold of your data such as to comply with financial or other regulations.
• When the organisation is carrying out a task in the public interest or when exercising their official authority.
• When keeping your data is necessary for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
• When erasing your data would prejudice scientific or historical research, or archiving that is in the public interest.