(Censored due to Cifas's legal threats) mentioned that information is kept by MCLS as well Experian and Equifax.This page has upset people. We encourage you to read their criticisms - and add your own - by clicking on the "Add your own comments" link at the bottom of the page.
We also recommend you read the - in our opinion, bizarre - legal claims CIFAS and its lawyers have made to "dissuade" this site from publishing the name of CIFAS's chief executive. Ask yourself: why?
You should know that at the time most of this was ocurring, we are not the only ones who are worried by CIFAS and we outline the Data Protection Registrar's worries about this organisation in the story below.
(Home Repossession Page note: CIFAS no longer appears to have a Data Protection record. We believe another organisation probably maintains records that it uses.
An entry on your credit reference record titled "CIFAS" always looks like another type of record kept by credit reference agencies Equifax, Experian and MCL Software (MCLS).
CIFAS is more than that.
It's also a separate company called Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System. It's sometimes called C.I.F.A.S. and Cifas.
Lenders and credit reference companies tell you CIFAS records cover details of ways in which you "may" have abused credit application forms. They categorise these as:
But there are two problems with CIFAS:
Although it's registered the information it keeps with the Data Protection Office, it says it doesn't keep any records itself. It says if you want to see its records you should serve a subject access rights notice on the credit reference agencies. A subject access rights notice is a a right granted to you by the Data Protection Act. It's different to checking your records with the credit reference agencies.
This is a problem because the Data Protection Registrar has told us that if a company registers its databases with the Data Protection Registrar, then the company must reveal that information when you serve a Data Protection Act subject access rights notice on it.
CIFAS doesn't. It sends you off to two of the three credit reference agencies instead.
There's another problem: CIFAS associates innocent people with fraud by placing "warnings" against their credit reference agency records. Why? Because they live at the same address as someone else that CIFAS thinks may have tried to commit credit fraud. Or because they live at an address where someone who CIFAS suspects tried to commit fraud used to live. Cosy, isn't it?
CIFAS is quite open about this. You can read its explanation of the process on its web-page at http://www.cifas.org.uk/.
In autumn 1999, CIFAS paid top lawyers to threaten us for
a) publishing this page and
b) leaving the name of its executive secretary in copies of emails he sent to us.
Since we wrote this, we have become aware of another problem with the CIFAS system. if a member of CIFAS erroneously reports you to CIFAS as a suspected fraduster, your life can become a nightmare. Our archives include a growing pile of evidence that this nightmare has happened to innocent people. We will publish that evidence on completion of a legal case that is now inching through the courts. Note that CIFAS appears to be refusing to supply its fabled "rule-book" - the rules with which CIFAS members must comply - to the person claiming to have been damaged by faults in the CIFAS fraud reporting system.
We first fell foul of this low-profile organisation a year earlier - when we tried to find out what information it kept about repossessees.
In October 1998, we served a Subject Access Rights Notice on CIFAS by post. No reply. So in November 1998 we popped in to deliver the notice by hand.
CIFAS' staff refused to accept it. A secretary told us:
"If it's anything to do with your file you need to get it from the credit reference agencies because they're holding our information."
We told one of the Data Protection Office's registrars what CIFAS had said and the Data Protection Registrar told us:
"If the company has registered with us, their database is totally separate to Equifax and Experian's (the two main credit reference agencies that the CIFAS secretary had hinted at. The other is MCLS). You have the right to search it."
As you can imagine, after hearing that, we formally complained to the Data Protection Registrar about CIFAS's refusal to even accept our subject access rights notice.
But after the Data Protection Registrar investigated, it told us that CIFAS had responded that it keeps no data of its own. CIFAS told the Data Protection Registrar that the data is actually kept by the credit reference agencies.
We find this odd because CIFAS has registered its databases separately to the credit reference agencies' databases. But its claim that "A third party holds the actual data...", means CIFAS doesn't have to bear any consequences of being registered with the DPR. In other words, it doesn't itself have to supply any answers to your subject access requests.
We mention this here because our investigation has turned up conflicting views about the legality of doing this. Our experience shows that there are conflicting views about the legality of it even among the Data Protection Registrars at the Data Protection Commission.
It also worries us because there is no way you can check the truth of what organisations like CIFAS say. You have to take their word for it. And that is difficult because the responses of these credit reference companies are out of line with what the common, decent public thinks.
For example, we find the way credit reference companies insist on "associating" each of us with other people's credit reference information offensive. CIFAS thinks it is acceptable. It says no lender is allowed to refuse credit simply because CIFAS has put a "warning" against that person's name. But it has offered no explanation of how it makes sure that they don't.
We wonder - and it is only us wondering - if CIFAS is damaging people. Many of us know people who claim they were refused credit for no obvious reason. If you click on the "CIFAS complaints and our responses" link at the bottom of this page, you'll find a newspaper report about one innocent man who claimed CIFAS damaged his reputation.
And since we first began to publish our worries about CIFAS we've learned that the Data Protection Registrar's original support for CIFAS has turned to "concern". We discovered in October 1999 that the Data Protection Registrar was in on-going negotiations with CIFAS to try sort out exactly the concerns we had raised. Here's an excerpt from the DPR's June 1999 annual report
"Within the credit industry there is another information sharing arrangement, the Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System (CIFAS). This system was set up to reduce fraudulent activity by sharing data on suspected fraud cases. It relies to a large extent on the exemption in the Data Protection Act 1984 relating to prevention or detection of crime. We have generally been supportive of its aims. Largely as a result of a significant increase in complaints numbers we have undertaken a review of CIFAS's processing of personal data. Issues of concern, relating in particular to the address based nature of the processing, criteria for filing and interpretation of CIFAS markers, and a lack of consumer awareness, have been brought to CIFAS's attention. They have indicated their intention to respond constructively to us."
You can see this report for yourself at http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk/dpc5.pdf. It's an Adobe Acrobat document - after it loads, you'll need to click on the binoculars in your toolbar and search for "CIFAS".
That excerpt throws a lot of light on why CIFAS has tried to get us to stress that it is involved with crime prevention. Stressing CIFAS' fraud-fighting activities makes criticism of CIFAS seem somehow... ungentlemanly. It is also pinpoints the exception in Data Protection law that allows CIFAS to hint to lenders that you are a fraud without giving you the right to check its claims.
Clearly the Data Protection Registrar is less than impressed by its claims. We understand that at the time of writing (November 1999), the DPR case on CIFAS is still open after months of investigation.
Back to what we think... We find the way CIFAS staff refused to accept a subject access rights notice offensive. It looked secretive. It also raised our suspicions.
We find the way credit industry companies tend to refer you to Experian and Equifax suspicious. While complaining to us about the content of an earlier version of this page, CIFAS director (Censored due to Cifas's legal threats) mentioned that information is kept by MCLS as well Experian and Equifax.
CIFAS now mentions MCLS on its web-site at http://www.cifas.org.uk. We believe The Home Repossession Page was the first - and is still the only - publication to highlight MCLS's role. Most newspaper reports about how you gain access to your credit reference files simply trot out the addresses of Experian and Equifax.
You can serve a subjects access rights notice on CIFAS (and we urge you to do so) at the following address:
CIFAS
4th Floor, Tennyson House
159-165 Great Portland Street
London
W1N 5FD
However, CIFAS has decided to charge you the maximum it legally can. That's £10. It could have chosen to charge you nothing - like lenders such as the Bradford & Bingley Building Society. It could even have chosen to charge you the minimum credit reference agency charge of £2 (as of September 1999).
CIFAS used to share an address with REGISTRY TRUST LTD, which maintains the REGISTRY OF COUNTY COURT JUDGEMENTS. It's an official-sounding name for what is actually a private company run by the credit industry to swap consumer credit information. CIFAS tells us they are entirely separate organisations.
Registry Trust Ltd continues to operate at:
173/175 Cleveland Street
London
W1P 5PE
CIFAS's first email and our email response.
We summarise CIFAS's criticisms and point out one or two little problems with them. You may notice that CIFAS do not seem to have replied to our responses. But they did. Their replies came from lawyer Paisner & Co.
If you want to see what the DPA said about how it handles complaints, click here.
Add your own comments here or read other people's comments
| Home Page | Receive free news and updates |
| Tell a friend about this site | |
| Last modified: | |
| © The Home Repossession Page 1997- | |