Privacy advocate noyb sues credit bureau CRIF over credit scoring practices
Privacy advocate noyb sues credit bureau CRIF over credit scoring practices
Publish Date: 2026-06-09 03:31:00
Source Domain: www.marketscreener.com
In Austria, the data protection organization noyb is taking legal action against the international credit bureau CRIF over allegedly illegal credit ratings. The organization, led by privacy activist Max Schrems, has filed an injunction in Austria and is preparing a class-action lawsuit for damages, noyb announced on Tuesday.
Noyb accuses the Italian company, which has a strong presence in Austria, of having built a secret registry containing data on almost every adult in the country. For around 90 percent of those affected, the so-called score, which often determines the approval of mobile phone contracts or loans, is based solely on age, gender, and residential address, as no actual financial data is available. ‘CRIF has organized data on almost every person in Austria and assigns questionable scores’, Schrems stated. Neither the data collection nor the scoring is legal in this form, he added. A statement from CRIF was not immediately available.
Noyb further accuses CRIF of failing to inform data subjects about data storage and of processing data without consent on the basis of ‘legitimate interest’. According to noyb, the data used often originates from address brokers who are only permitted to sell it for marketing purposes. CRIF’s clients reportedly include major companies such as mobile providers Magenta and Drei, Erste Bank, the utility group Verbund, as well as online retailer Zalando and payment service provider Klarna.
Should the planned class-action lawsuit succeed, the privacy advocates anticipate damages of around 500 euros for each affected individual. The action by noyb is one of the first proceedings under the European Union’s new Representative Actions…
