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by disgruntledphd2 131 days ago
> Credit scores are mass surveillance. Essential to the idea is that you already have one in the background. If a bank uses some calculation based on information you provide to decide to give you credit, it's still not a credit score.

US style credit scores are mass surveillance, because they incorporate all of your bank transactions. The actual use-case for credit scores doesn't require that, it merely needs a prediction of whether or not you'll repay a particular loan.

That is totally doable using public data, and one could also offer a service where your bank details get ingested to provide further information (using consent as a basis for the processing). All of this is possible in the EU, under current legislation.

You'd also include public data and area based data based on address, which again is entirely legal.

Source: worked in the insurance version of credit scoring in Europe for a few years.