Experian Personal Data and Your Rights (2024)

Most of the data people want from Experian is already available in their credit report.

Your Experian Credit Report contains public and private information recorded in your name. Authorised lenders can search it to see your credit history when deciding whether to offer you credit. It includes:

• Credit account information. This includes your name and address, account names, current balances and payment statuses, among other things.
• Address links. A list of all the addresses we can find that are linked to your name.
• Aliases. Other names you may be known by, such as a maiden name.
• Previous searches. A record of each time a company has searched your credit report.
• Electoral roll. A record of whether you're registered to vote at your current and previous addresses.
• Notices of correction. Any short notes you or we have added to explain something in your Experian Credit Report.
• Financial associates. Details of anyone you're financially linked to, like sharing a mortgage or other credit account with.
• Public information. Details of any public orders you may have against you, such as County Court Judgments (CCJs), Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) or bankruptcies - or their equivalents in different parts of the UK.
• Rental information. Any information letting agents, landlords and housing associations have shared about rental payments with us.

Most of the data businesses want from Experian is already available in their credit report.

We also hold public and private information about businesses of all sizes, available in a business credit report, which owners of non-limited businesses and directors of limited companies can request a copy of. Authorised lenders and suppliers can search it to see a business's credit history when deciding whether to offer them credit. It includes:

• Business credit score. A reflection of the information in your business credit report.
• Business credit limit and rating. An outline of your business's commercial credit limit and its financial status.
• Credit searches. A record of each time a company has searched your business credit report.
• Credit account information. This includes your business name and address, account names and numbers, current balances and account statuses, among other things.
• SME credit data sharing information. This includes your business's minimum, maximum, average and current credit balances, among other things.
• Public information. Details of any public orders such as County Court Judgments (CCJs), legal notices and bankruptcies - or their equivalents in different parts of the UK.
• Business information. This includes your current and previous business names, addresses, principal activities and SIC codes.
• Financial accounts and ratios*. This includes filed profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, cash flow statements and ratios for up to four years, where filed.
• Parent and subsidiary companies*. This includes holding and subsidiary companies.
• Share capital and shareholders*. This includes issued capital, share class and number of shares, among other things.
• Directors and secretaries*. Details of your business's current and previous officers.

*Limited companies only

As part of our marketing services we develop products that help companies understand the likely behaviours and interests of individuals, households and geographic areas. This helps them target personalised information and offers to the relevant people across different marketing channels based on their likely interests and characteristics. The marketing information we may hold about you includes:

• Marketing contact information. The personal information we share with companies for marketing, including things like your name and address for postal marketing campaigns. We only ever use this information where you've given the appropriate permission for us to do so.
• Marketing insights. The personal information we use to create groups of individuals, households or geographic areas (what we call 'audiences') that companies may want more insight into, or who they want to communicate with collectively.
• Marketing data quality and suppressions. This includes the information that helps make sure our records are accurate as well as your marketing and contact preferences, so we make sure you're only contacted when you've given permission.

To help lenders make responsible and accurate decisions about credit, we give them estimates on how much you can likely afford each month in repayments. We base these estimates on lots of information, including:

• Earnings and spending. What you said you earned and spent when completing your credit application.
• Money going into your bank account. Some banks tell us how much is paid into your account each month.
• Bank statement summaries. If you give lenders direct access to your bank statements for the purpose of assessing affordability, we'll sometimes help them split your spending into categories. If this happens we'll show you the same information and categories.

Customers with an Experian account, such as CreditExpert, can share Open Banking data (information about their bank account transactions) with Experian. This can be used to try and improve their likelihood of being accepted for credit or to support financial management. The information we hold may include:

• Your shared bank accounts. The details of any accounts you have connected through Open Banking and when you consented to share this information.
• Bank statement transactions and payment categories. Our Open Banking services involve analysing your bank transactions and splitting your spending into categories, a summary of which may have been provided to potential lenders. If this happened, we'll show you the same information and categories.
• The impact of such data on your Experian Credit Score. If the data has created a change in your Experian Credit Score, we will tell you what that change was and when it took effect.

Experian employee

If you have worked at Experian, we may hold information about your employment, including:

• Details about your employment contracts.
• A list of your job roles at Experian.
• Your salary, bonuses and other rewards.
• Any training courses you attended.

Job Applicants

If you applied for a job at Experian in the last 12 months, we may hold information about you and your application, including:

• Details of what you included in your application.
• Your CV and past employment information.

Each time we create a new credit report for you, we keep a copy on record for two years in case we need to refer to it to answer any questions.

We may also hold additional information about addresses or individuals you’ve been associated with that were not included on your credit report due to being an address or individual already showing as being connected to you on the report we provided.

Your Experian ID is a digital identifier you can use with any company or organisation displaying the Experian ID logo. When you apply for your Experian ID, we use the personal information you provide to check it's really you and not a fraudster using your name - this is how we verify who you are. From time to time we'll recheck this information to make sure your identity is up to date.

You can use your Experian ID to access everything from our consumer products and subscriptions, like the free Experian account, to government services with the GOV.UK Verify logo. Once on a site with the Experian ID logo, choose 'I've used Verify before' when prompted, and just select Experian as the identity provider.

Some of the products and subscriptions we offer include a web monitoring feature that scans certain websites and locations to check your personal and financial information isn't being misused. This information includes:

• Details of which personal information you've chosen to be monitored.
• Details of any matches we've found to your name in our web monitoring cache.

We offer a background checking service that provides references for people looking for homes (typically renting rather than buying) and jobs. Our background checks include:

• Candidate application information. This includes everything we've found to help with employer screening using the information you provided in your application. Employers use it to confirm everything you've said is valid and whether you're suitable for the role.
• Tenant application information. This includes everything we've found to help with landlord and letting agent screening using the information you provided in your application. They use it to confirm everything you've said is valid and whether you're a suitable tenant.

If you're an Experian commercial client, we may hold details about your name, work address, phone number and email. Your name may also be associated with other commercially sensitive documents stored in our system, where you deal with Experian in your role as a client or potential Experian client.

Although we can confirm when we hold information about you and show you what's included, most of the time we won't be able to release that information because of commercial sensitivity and non-disclosure agreements we have with clients.

Experian Automotive is a service offering vehicle provenance checks for traders and consumers. We offer this service direct to consumers through AutoCheck as well as through the AutoTrader branded VehicleCheck, sold on the AutoTrader website. The information we hold for Experian Automotive includes:

• AutoCheck. We collect the name on your payment card, billing and email address.
• Vehicle Check. We collect the name on your payment card, billing and email address.

As most companies do, we keep a record of your correspondence with us, which may include:

• Letters and emails we've exchanged (though you already have this information).
• Notes we've taken during phone conversations about the nature of your call.
• Details of any complaints and correspondence between you and the agent handing your complaint.
• Details of any data queries where you think the information we hold about you is wrong.

If you are or have been an Experian customer (whether it's a free Experian account, a paid subscription like CreditExpert or a service supplied through one of our partners), we may hold the information you gave us when using our services.

We help companies and organisations trace customers who've moved or changed their contact details. To do this we may use:

• 'Gone away' information from lenders, where your post has been returned undelivered by the Post Office, marked 'gone away'.
• Telephone directory information.

We work with companies to help them conduct identify checks and detect fraud. This includes:

• Recording information about possible victims of fraud
• Verifying bank account details and investigating bank account fraud
• Performing identity checks including details of what we have found when a company conducts a check using our services