Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has used a speech at Experian's CAIS User Group in London to reinforce the deadline for the credit industry to be fully third party (TPD) data compliant before the end of 2004.
Richard Fiddis, Experian's Chief Operating Officer for the UK & Ireland, said that the Information Commissioner was unequivocal in his demand for full compliance by the end of next year – but warned that Richard Thomas also reminded the audience that he has actually set a target of June 2004.
He continued: "The industry as a whole has now been set a challenge – Richard Thomas has made it clear that there is no room for slippage. While we have helped many organisations to become fully TPD compliant and are working with others on their systems migration plans and implementation in order to meet the deadline, we are concerned that there is still a great deal of work to be done. Any organisation which hasn't already put its plans together may find that it has neither the time nor resource available to meet the deadline.
"Two years ago, the credit industry negotiated a concession with the then Information Commissioner, Elizabeth France, to give lenders time to make the complex changes required to their systems to cope with new rules around what household data could be used in making credit decisions. Since then, a significant amount of work has been carried out at Experian to ensure it can offer fully compliant systems, data and scorecards to its clients. Richard Thomas has now made it clear that he considers that the industry has had long enough to meet its compliance obligations."
As well as helping clients with their migration plans, Experian has developed a new generation of third party data compliant scorecards, which have been proven to offer improved predictiveness through compliance. As a result, no organisation need fear that it will suffer from increased risk from TPD compliance.
Richard Fiddis added: "We are at an advanced stage in a programme with clients to achieve systems and scoring compliance. We are confident that we will be able to assist our clients in meeting the deadline set by the Information Commissioner but urge any clients that have not yet made arrangements with us to book the necessary resources if they are to achieve compliance in time.
"There really can be no greater systems priority than third party data compliance at the current time."