A person whose creditworthiness has been assessed by an automated system has the right to obtain an explanation of the data on the basis of which a decision was made regarding him or her and, in case of doubt, the right to challenge it, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled on Thursday.
This is a situation from Austria, where a mobile operator refused to sign a contract with a customer on the grounds that she did not have sufficient creditworthiness. Her assessment was carried out on behalf of the operator by Dun & Bradstreet Austia, a company specializing in assessing the creditworthiness of consumers using an automated system based on AI technology. The case concerned a subscription fee of 10 euros per month.
After receiving a negative response, the client asked Dun & Bradstreet for an explanation of the basis for the decision, but the company refused to provide full information, citing trade secrets.
The case went to a national court, which found that the company had violated data protection regulations (GDPR) because it had failed to provide the plaintiff with “relevant information about the principles of automated decision-making” without properly explaining why it could not provide it. The Austrian court asked the CJEU for an interpretation of the GDPR and trade secrets regulations.
In a ruling issued on Thursday, the CJEU ruled that a company must specifically describe the procedure and principles used in the automated decision-making process, so that the person concerned can understand which of their personal data have been taken into account and how. The customer who is being assessed should also receive information about whether and to what extent changing their data could result in a different decision.
If the entrepreneur, in this case Dun & Bradstreet, believes that the information it is to provide contains protected third-party data or reveals business secrets, it should forward it to the appropriate supervisory authority or court. They will decide what information may be disclosed to the client who requests it.
From Brussels Jowita Kiwnik Pargana (PAP)
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