Digital Law Up(to)date: EDPS opinion on the proposal for a directive on consumer credits
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has handed down a positive opinion on the initiative of the European Commission to modernise Directive 2008/48 on credit agreements for consumers, taking into account the increasing digitalisation of this market. The EDPS analysed the text from a personal data protection perspective.
The opinion recognises that there is a real complementarity between consumer protection (which is the focus of the initiative of the European Commission) and data protection. In this regard, the EDPS recommends including a clear provision indicating that the GDPR is fully applicable in case of processing of personal data made in the field of the credit agreements. It also believes that consumers should be better informed about the existence of databases used, for example, to assess their creditworthiness. In this review, the EDPS also suggests to clearly indicate the categories of data that can be used. Finally, it raises the question of the coherence of the rules on consumer credits with regard to the proposed European legislation on artificial intelligence (AI) as AI systems are used in the creditworthiness assessment.
This article was co-authored by Edouard Cruysmans in his capacity of Professional Support Lawyer at Stibbe.
