Germany's leading credit bureau Schufa operates a previously unknown shadow database storing the historical financial records of millions of consumers well beyond statutory deletion deadlines, according to investigative reports.
The stored data includes old loans, credit cards, seizures, private insolvencies, and settled debts. Schufa uses this information to test newly developed credit scores, passing the results of these historical calculations to corporate clients including banks, telecommunications firms, and energy providers. Affected consumers receive no notification of the practice, and the historical data does not appear in standard Schufa data-copy requests. Privacy expert Ruth Janal has stated that the permanent retention of such data is inadmissible under European Court of Justice case law.
The Hessian state data protection commissioner has been reviewing the legality of the data tests since spring 2025. Schufa, which says it holds information on 69 million people and provides an average of 350,000 daily reports to businesses, has not commented on the findings.