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OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
- orless 9y agoWhen applying for a loan, mobile phone contract, or even trying to rent an apartment in Germany, the Schufa score - Germany's credit rating - is decisive. If you have a few "points" too little, your application is refused. (Computer says "No" to your new smartphone or apartment.) However, the calculation of these credit scores - done by the private Schufa company - is fully intransparent. The formula is a trade secret, and as such not open to the public. We want to change this intransparency with the project OpenSCHUFA. Open Knowledge Foundation together with AlgorithmWatch want to reconstruct the Schufa algorithm with "reverse engineering".
- gravypod 9y agoHow big is your dataset? I'd expect the logic backing a legacy/old school company like this would turn out to be an expert system. If that's the case, and you have a LOT of data, you'd likely get very far by just feeding a bunch of SCHUFA applications and resulting scores into SKL's decision tree classifier. They are easy to visualize, they likely model what's going on behind the scenes, and it takes very little effort to give it a try.
- orless 9y agoI cannot answer, I'm not affiliated with the project. Better ask @vavoida.
- anc84 9y agoHow do you plan to do that? Which bits of information can you gather that allow you reverse engineer significant parts of their process?
- hdkrgr 9y agoConsumer's have a right to get an overview of all their collected data as well as the calculated (category) scores once each year for free. These could essentially serve as input output pairs.
- anc84 9y agoI know what the reports contain. And I do not see how you could gather any meaningful insights from it.
- thesimon 9y agoHow do you want to reconstruct it exactly? The SCHUFA scores are only accessible for free once a year, so it would take quite some years to reconstruct them.
- eggpy 9y agoIf you're going one at a time. You can improve this by increasing your number of datapoints (people's scores) > For this purpose we call for data donations: > Everybody can request their free SCHUFA-Score from Schufa under selbstauskunft.net/schufa and donate the data to our project.
- philfrasty 9y ago„...even trying to rent an apartment in Germany...“ While this MAY be true in a lot of cases it certainly is not all the time. From my experience 50/50.
- vavoida 9y agosee this information https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/what-is-schufa/ https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/what-is-schufa/
- danielbln 9y agoNot all the time probably, though in my experience, especially if it's not a flat share but a proper apartment, it's definitely closer to 100% (Berlin).
- philfrasty 9y agoI guess the likelihood increases if you go through one of the newer screen-tenants-first-online-platforms or the building has hired a property management company. Going through newspaper-classifieds or owner-let apartments yielded 100% no Schufa for me in Munich + Berlin.
- VonGallifrey 9y agoReally? Schufa was the first thing anyone asks when I was interested in a new apartment. My schufa score is abysmal, but luckily the score is not included in this document, only the negative entries.
- dna_polymerase 9y ago50/50 may hold true if you are renting directly from the owner. If a real estate agent is involved (or something like degewo) it is somewhere around 100% of all cases.
- philfrasty 9y ago+1 for owner. Luckily you can choose (still).
- vavoida 9y agoFYI in case you speak German, this project is currently all over the news in Germany, causing quite a stir. TV http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/schufa-101.html http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/schufa-101.html https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/video-schufa-score-transparent-machen--100.html https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/vi... https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-knacken-article20288673.html https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-k... Online https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonitaets-scoring-ueberpruefbar https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonita... http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-wie-die-schufa-formel-zu-knacken-ist-a-1193522.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-w... https://www.golem.de/news/openschufa-reverse-engineering-der-schufa-geplant-1802-132791.html https://www.golem.de/news/openschufa-reverse-engineering-der... https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OpenSCHUFA-Projekt-will-Scoring-Methoden-rekonstruieren-3970425.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OpenSCHUFA-Projekt-w... https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/openschufa-algorithmus-bonitaet-auskunft https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/openschufa-algorithmu... https://www.futurezone.de/netzpolitik/article213448091/OpenSCHUFA-will-mit-Crowdfunding-die-Schufa-Formel-knacken.html https://www.futurezone.de/netzpolitik/article213448091/OpenS... https://netzpolitik.org/2018/jetzt-mitmachen-wir-knacken-die-schufa/ https://netzpolitik.org/2018/jetzt-mitmachen-wir-knacken-die... most motivational video, ever https://youtu.be/HBsD8BdXSCY https://youtu.be/HBsD8BdXSCY 2 current related article worth reading http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/regierungsberater-gerd-gigerenzer-wir-sind-laengst-auf-dem-weg-in-den-ueberwachungsstaat/20950328-all.html http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/regierungsberater-gerd... http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/dass-wir-ueberwacht-werden-ist-klar-aber-von-wem-und-wie-eine-spurensuche-15445555.html http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/dass-wir-ueberwach... (disclaimer I'm part of the team)
- chrisper 9y agoDid you also cite the part where you are being financially supported by Bertelsmann Stiftung who have a competing product (Arvato Infoscore)? Though I am not sure if it is as bad as they claim...
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- a254613e 9y agoReading the funding goals[0] I don't understand why there is a funding goal of 30k to develop... an OCR app? Wouldn't it make more sense, from both financial and technical standpoint to accept raw images then do the OCR server side? Server side OCR probably has more resources, and can utilize better OCR software. And you can re-run it after some time on every image if the results aren't that accurate. [0] - https://www.startnext.com/openschufa https://www.startnext.com/openschufa
- vavoida 9y agojust raw images would cause major privacy & data protection issues
- a254613e 9y agoFair enough. I've donated, even though I still think that developing OCR app might be a bit waste of resources. I still find it to be lesser "evil" than schufa - which, I'm pretty sure, is also extremely discriminatory towards people who move to Germany and giving them worse score by default. Hopefully you'll get enough optional data to be able to prove that too.
- hocuspocus 9y agoNot defending the Schufa, I strongly believe that any kind of aggregated credit history should never be in the hands of private companies. But when I moved to Germany, I was under the impression that potential landlords just want to make sure you don't have negative entries, and didn't care much for the actual score. Luckily I managed to find an apartment belonging to a Russian investor, who didn't ask for my record at all. In the end I never got myself to even request a free report.
- a254613e 9y agoYes, that's what's important for landlords. You get a letter from scufa saying "There are no negative entries for this person". That's enough. However if you try to get a phone contract, credit card, internet contract, or anything else that requires payment in the future then your score is pretty much the only relevant part. And that score is (maybe it varies by country) completely abysmal by default if you've moved to Germany - and it improves very slowly (<1%/yr).
- pseingatl 9y agoNext target: Fair, Isaac. Perhaps the OpenSCHUFA project can be convinced to take on Fair, Isaac next.
- orless 9y ago17 years living in Germany, never heard of Fair, Isaac. Creditreform and Arvato are much likely next targets.
- bluesign 9y agoIf this is really ‘open’, how we can access submitted data? Otherwise comments here about this project funded by competitor is making this a bit fishy.
- aluhut 9y agoIs Bertelsmann a competitor? Nevermind, just read it below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvato https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvato
- vavoida 9y agobtw. we are requestion infoscore aka Bertelsmann - data see stats https://okfn.de/blog/2018/02/openschufa-english/#update https://okfn.de/blog/2018/02/openschufa-english/#update
- aluhut 9y agoWhy don't they just deliver them to you? I'm sorry but this is highly sensible data and the "where does the money come from" caution is the first line of defense a normal user has. Most of the time it is the only one. Partnering with Bertelsmann here was a huge mistake. It questions not only data security it questions this first line of defense. Think about it, how am I supposed to tell somebody to give their data to you when I already told them to look for the money first? I'd make myself and my methods unbelievable, incoherent and probably corrupted. This is really terrible because this research is necessary and important but I hope you understand that I will neither support it nor recommend it...
- vavoida 9y agowe, the OKFDE, have no partnership with Bertelsmann our partner, algorithmwatch, has - independently from this project - funding from Bertelsmann Stiftung again the data is first delivered only to the user, afterwards he/she can decide what to do glad we agree that the issue is important
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- expertentipp 9y agoSCHUFA is demanding a passport copy from EU citizens to obtain the annual unpaid data overview report. A citizen of an EU country residing in Germany is under no obligation to hold a passport. I don't understand how until now no one torn the SCHUFA credit bureau into pieces over it. https://i.imgur.com/nEZRJDv.png https://i.imgur.com/nEZRJDv.png
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- lispm 9y ago> A citizen of an EU country residing in Germany is under no obligation to hold a passport. Any EU citizen needs a passport or equivalent in Germany. One needs it already when entering Germany. Though you don't need to carry it all time with you. But you need to have one.
- expertentipp 9y agoA citizen of EU country has no obligation to hold a passport while in another EU country in case their country issues other document confirming both identity and nationality of a citizen e.g. a national ID.
- TomK32 9y agolipsm wrote "passport or equivalent" and you are jumping to "passport". Here's the law: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/freiz_gg_eu_2004/__8.html http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/freiz_gg_eu_2004/__8.html EU citizens in Germany have to carry a passport or equivalent.
- expertentipp 9y ago> EU citizens in Germany have to carry a passport or equivalent. ..and no one has the right to demand explicitly passport if one is able to produce an equivalent and valid document e.g. national ID.
- larrydag 9y agoI work in the credit finance space. The first thing that jumps out to me is the security and privacy of people's credit data details. There is a lot of personal information that could be used for stealing one's identity. What assurances are there that this data is protected and anonymous?
- vavoida 9y agoThe data and credit scores are sent from the credit score agencies to each person directly (via snail-mail). After that they can decide to upload their "anonymized" data or not. In order to develop a privacy focused uploading process we started the crowdfunding campaign.
- a254613e 9y agoStealing someone's identity is much harder with the data that schufa has. And stealing identity isn't really a thing here. Like to open a bank account you still need to go to the post office with your ID which they then confirm, so knowing the things that schufa knows won't get you far. As far as I understood it credit data companies in the US have a lot more info. Schufa has very basic things: "Opened account at X bank", "Got approved loan of 10k", "Signed a phone contract". They don't have any insight into loan payments, individual transactions, or anything else really.
- erikb 9y agoThis is pure advertisement. Please stop misusing our forum for ads.
- expertentipp 9y agoIt might be that on the wave of rage against SCHUFA someone wants to crowdsource huge library of personal data:)
- orless 9y agoI am not affiliated with OpenSCHUFA.
- knoke 9y agoI'd love to understand what you expect to find (given that you might have some special insight into credit scoring). I'd guess that the "algorithm" could be an embarrassingly simple sum of thumbs up/down for a handful of items. Like: If a person lives in a thumbsup/thumbsdown/nothumbs neighborhood etc.
- vavoida 9y agowrt algo - afaik the biggest credit rating agency in Germany is "just" using a logistic regression. details will follow.
- johannes1234321 9y agoMight be worth noting that OpenSCHUFA has some ties to the Bertelsmann Foundation, which owns Arvato Infoscore, a SCHUFA competitor.
- orless 9y agoI think this is properly disclosed. And definitely does not reduce the value of the effort.
- Sujan 9y agoMight be worth to tell the full story, as well: - OpenSCHUFA was initiated by Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland and Algorithmwatch, two independent and established NGOs. - Algorithmwatch is supported by a foundation/trust called "Bertelsmann Stiftung". - There is also a company called "Bertelsmann", which owns Arvato Infoscore, a competitor to SCHUFA. - The Bertelsmann Stiftung (which is supporting Algorithmwatch which is co-initiator of OpenSCHUFA) owns a majority of shares of the company (that owns Arvator Infoscore, a competitor to SCHUFA), and some people say the foundation and company are tightly tied together. - And last but not least Schufa now places in the press, that this is a big conflict of interest.
- vavoida 9y agoAs stated before, we are not only asking for SCHUFA but also arvato data, see blogpost https://okfn.de/blog/2018/02/openschufa-english/#update https://okfn.de/blog/2018/02/openschufa-english/#update