Creditinfo created legal precedent in Lithuania to use Big Data in scoring

Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania ruled out a progress decision in Lithuania allowing to use social data, like Facebook, for creditworthiness. That decision is an important step forward easing the way to develope prediction scores based on Big Data.

Before that ruling, credit bureau Creditinfo faced a ban from Data protection authority to use social data for scoring. The Court made it clear that credit bureau has a legal right to assess creditworthiness and to use social data for that. More on that, the Court also stated that there is no end list of data that could be used for credit risk valuation.

That decision will bring more clarity processing personal data and limit various interpretations by state institutions that tried to forbid some data usage for credit risk process.

The Court ruling has a direct impact for credit bureau Creditinfo that two years ago developed social credit score, based on Facebook users data. Facebook users were able to calculate their score – a value from 300 to 800 – by themselves. Customers decided by themselves they want their score to be calculated or not.

This Court decision finally closed that case and allowed Creditinfo and other advanced companies to bring more Big Data scoring decisions in Lithuanian market.

Interesting facts:

  • Advocate Mindaugas Kiškis, who assisted defending Creditinfo position, stated that „the decision is revolutionary“.
  • The Court decision was posted on Linkedin by the Judge itself.