A prominent data protection group on Wednesday demanded that Germany's main credit-scoring agency delete troves of data that it alleges has been stored illegally, and threatened court action.
The European Centre for Digital Rights, known as Noyb, accused the agency Schufa of keeping information on millions of consumers beyond certain retention periods.
Schufa provides assessments on potential customers' creditworthiness that are used by landlords as well as banks and other businesses.
The claims first emerged in German media reports in July, which said the agency was maintaining a "shadow database" containing information on issues such as old loans and personal bankruptcies that should have been deleted.
This data continues to be processed and is used by third parties to check credit scores, according to Noyb, which is based in Vienna.
