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Comment by delusional | Hacker News Reader

As a European, it is wild to see a private company warning that disallowing them the ability to process your personal data might hinder your ability to access social services.

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Have a look at german Schufa company. I was there pre RGPD, so maybe things have changed.

This is "only" used for loans and renting, the German government is never going to query the score this company has assigned you. Social services are never impacted.

Equifax on the other hand claims:

> Social Services - When government agencies can't verify your information, you may have to wait longer to start receiving benefits.

The German government probably actually knows who all of its citizens are.

There's a small law called GDPR which makes this kind of pulls very illegal. Even for Schufa which doesn't forward your direct data.

I very much hate Schufa for the way they calculate your score (which until very recently was not even disclosed). But hey, at least they don't sell my income data to random private companies. In fact they do not have my income. Just credit related stuff. I demand an overview from them every 3 months that they have to physically mail to me, just to annoy them..

As a European, your complete tax records might be public information, and the tax authority itself will have a service number which anybody can call to get information on your income and much more.

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