Almost all of us could get share of £34bn from credit checker Experian
CREDIT- CHECK firm Experian is being sued in a landmark High Court case that could see almost every adult in England and Wales share a £ 34 billion damages pot, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Anglo- Irish giant, which holds information on about 46 million individuals, is accused of misselling people’s data and building potentially inaccurate profiles that can affect decisions on credit.
Lawyers acting for a representative claimant – Liz Williams, a 58- year- old mother- of- four from Gillingham in Dorset – filed a writ at the High Court on Friday in a case that threatens to cripple the credit company. Her claim is for £750 in damages.
It accuses Experian of collecting data on people from a raft of sources, which i nclude online questionnaires and website-tracking cookies, and selling it on for commercial gain.
The claim follows an Information Commissioner’s Offi c e ( I CO) enforcement notice last October that found Experian was selling people’s data on to third parties, including political parties, without their consent and imposed a £20 million fine. The company has launched an appeal.
Ms Williams’s writ states that the firm’s ‘processing and the profiling [of personal data] was neither fair nor transparent’ and the selling of data was made without consent.
If successful, every one of about 46 million people in England and Wales – 95 per cent of the adult population – whose personal data is held by Experian could be entitled to the same payment, taking total damages to £34.5 billion.
Ms Williams, an IT company director, answered an appeal for potential claimants to come forward as a representative for the case brought by law firm Harcus Parker. She said: ‘I didn’t realise my [Experian] report contained information that gave away the game on what I was doing online and elsewhere, and was being sold on. I had left plenty of tracks even though I never consent to cookies and never consent to sharing information. We need the legal levers to impose a penalty on bad behaviour.’
Companies and even political parties use Experian’s data to check credit-worthiness, market certain products or target them with messaging. The firm collects the data from a host of third-party sources.
A profile rates how likely a person is to gamble online, which supermarket they may use or newspaper they read. The rating is also affected by a person’s postcode, which means the attributes of an area – including the educational attainment and health levels of the local population – will alter scores.
It is feared the profiles, which can be inaccurate, are being sold on to deny people credit. Ed Parkes, of Harcus Parker, said: ‘We hope this case will deter future disrespect of laws on personal data.’
Experian said: ‘We disagree with the ICO’s view and we are appealing. We do not believe there are any reasonable grounds for bringing this case.’