‘Shadow database’ scandal: noyb sends SCHUFA cease-and-desist letter; interest list for class action opened
German privacy group noyb has sent a cease-and-desist letter to credit agency SCHUFA after investigations revealed it retained millions of records that should have been deleted, and used them for customer testing. Noyb has opened an interest list for a class action, with up to 69 million people potentially affected.
Why this matters: SCHUFA shapes whether Germans get loans, apartments, or phone contracts. If the agency kept data it was legally required to delete, and then used that data to score people, those people were judged by information they had a right to have erased. That is not a technicality. It changes real outcomes in people's lives. Refusing to disclose the data even when people formally ask under GDPR makes it worse. You cannot challenge a score you are not allowed to see. A class action of this scale could force credit agencies across Europe to take deletion rights seriously.
Who should care: Lawyers · Privacy officers · AI governance
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