Security News > 2020 > October > Experian vows to drag UK's Information Commissioner's Office to court after being told off for data-slurping practices
Experian has been rapped over the knuckles by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office after it discovered the credit reference agency was trading "Millions" of people's data for marketing purposes.
Instead of issuing a monetary fine the data regulator wrapped up a two-year probe yesterday by merely insisting Experian tweaks its online privacy policies and informs consumers it acquired data about them.
"The ICO found that significant 'invisible' processing took place, likely affecting millions of adults in the UK. It is 'invisible' because the individual is not aware that the organisation is collecting and using their personal data. This is against data protection law," said the ICO. It added: "Some of the were also using profiling to generate new or previously unknown information about people, which is often privacy invasive."
The ICO investigation into data brokers-cum-marketing agencies was triggered by campaign group Privacy International, which hailed its "Achieved result" by saying: "Data brokers are key actors in the hidden data ecosystem. The data they collect and later sell can be used for a range of different purposes, from commercial advertising to political campaigning, and in some worrying instances, law enforcement. Most people will never have heard of the these companies, as most data brokers are not consumer facing or household names."
Experian's Cassin claimed the agency's data-harvesting practices consisted of hoovering up information from the electoral register, censuses and "Market research data" before developing "Statistical models from data to infer insights useful to businesses and public bodies in order that they can function more efficiently".