Tomorrow, credit information on private people in Finland becomes public
By Sirkuspelle
Asiakastieto.fi will launch a new service in Finland tomorrow. Credit information about private people will become public and available. A credit report on a private person will cost between 3-4 Euros. There you can also get credit reports on businesses.
Some people are worried that this information will be used to discriminate against people. In countries where credit information is available about people, the person’s consent is often needed in order to actually use that information, such as in an employment check. (Such right-protection safeguards would be surprising in Finland, where the government allows magazines and cellular services to sell private peoples’ income information from the tax authority, which eventually finds its way into the Internet. Google “Veropörssi” and see what I mean.) I will also be interested to see if the give the “right to object”, and the right to be notified if someone accesses one’s data. They do seem to honour the right to access one’s data. I wonder if they will honour the right to correct wrong data. If they do end up operating in a way that it not in adherence with EU legislation regarding protection of Personal Data, the European Commission will be hearing about it. And it will be interesting to find out what rights and safeguards we actually do have.
At any rate, let’s hope and pray that this does not turn into the present circus that we have with peoples’ tax records, which, by the way, become public again in November. Let’s also keep our eyes open for non-adherence to EU legislation regarding protection of personal data. And let’s hope that this does not turn into exactly what the Swedish government was forced to put a stop to this past summer: Credit checks where you could get someone’s name, birthday, salary, wealth, street address, and municipality. Even the originators of this “openness” with private peoples’ personal information, the Swedes, finally figured out that selling peoples income information, birthdate, address, and so forth (even of underage people) in the Internet is downright stupid.

@ 5:46 pm 


