SCHUFA
Germany's dominant credit bureau, holding ~1.2 billion records on ~69 million people; you are entitled to one free data copy per year.
Full definition
SCHUFA (Schutzgemeinschaft für allgemeine Kreditsicherung) is the leading German credit-reference agency, holding roughly 1.2 billion records on about 69 million people and 6.6 million companies and answering some 232 million inquiries a year. Companies need your consent to pull your SCHUFA score, and you are entitled to one free annual data copy ("Datenkopie nach Art. 15 DSGVO"), which lets you check, dispute, and request deletion of outdated entries. SCHUFA scoring is regulated under §31 BDSG and was constrained by a 2023 Court of Justice of the EU ruling limiting purely automated credit scoring.
Source: SCHUFA (free annual data copy)
Go deeper
Germany data removal guide →Related terms
Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA)
An entity that assembles consumer information into reports used for credit, employment, housing, or insurance decisions, regulated under the FCRA.
Credit Header Data
The identifying portion of a credit report (name, aliases, addresses, SSN, phone, DOB), sold by credit bureaus largely outside FCRA deletion rights.
Automated Decision-Making
Decisions made solely by algorithmic processing, without meaningful human involvement, that have significant effects on an individual.
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