Unknown to most citizens, credit reference agencies secretly collect vast amounts of personal data on individuals and calculate so-called credit scores based on this information. In the majority of cases, these scores are based solely on general data such as age, gender and current of past addresses connected with statistical information. This can lead to situations where people are denied access to necessities such as housing, telecommunication services or energy or to loans – for example because they happen to life at the “wrong place”. In his talk, Marco Blocher will outline how the opaque surveillance capitalistic practices of credit reference agencies cement and amplify existing social inequalities and are at odds with the European data protection framework but also how civil society has started to push back their invasive conduct.
Marco Blocher is an Austrian lawyer working at noyb – European Center for Digital Rights (https://noyb.eu/en), a Vienna-based not-for-profit organisation focused on strategic litigation against large-scale violations of European data protection law by private entities. This regards known players such U.S. based big Tech, but also companies less known to the public – such as address publishers and credit reference agencies. Before joining noyb, Marco used to work in an Austrian credit reference, learning first-hand the often-cynical positions of this sector in terms of data protection. Marco frequently writes articles for Austrian and German legal journals and is co-founder of the DPMC, an international moot court competition on the GDPR.
