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As a registered credit bureau in terms of the National Credit Act (NCA), Consumer Profile Bureau (CPB) aims to comply with the law and in specific the NCA at all times.

CPB was therefore very surprised when it received a notice of non-compliance from the Credit Regulator’s office this week.

The notice of non-compliance was received after CPB requested clarity from the National Credit Regulator about whether “cause of death” as per the Department of Home Affairs is deemed to be medical data. The request for clarity followed after CPB raised a flag about various interpretations of specific sections of the National Credit Act with specific reference to section 55 that refers to medical information during an internal audit committee meeting in February this year. Looking at other legislation – and in specific the Protection of Personal Information Act – this is not applicable, as it specifically refers to consumers that are alive.

The Regulator’s office acknowledged receipt of CPB’s request for clarity and advised that they would revert back with an answer. CPB also shared its request for clarity with its external auditors during its annual audit in March 2014.

As CPB was awaiting clarity on this point, the bureau made a decision to remove the data from any deceased consumer’s profile until such time that feedback was received from the office of the Regulator.

“I categorically state that CPB has never accepted and does not carry medical account information,” says CPB CEO Marina Short.

“The notice from the Credit Regulator refers to the cause of death information provided by the Department of Home Affairs to credit bureaux and other data houses. This includes information such as date of death, place of death and cause of death as registered on the Department of Home Affairs database. This information is also printed when an official death certificate is requested from the Department of Home Affairs,” says Short.

The specific data relates to deceased consumers only and no consumer alive was impacted as a result of this data. This information is used by investigators, collection departments of credit providers, etc. to whom CPB provides deceased confirmations. Some of the other registered Credit Bureaux also hold this data. All access to any data CPB has available is granted as per the requirements of the National Credit Act with specific reference to the permissible purposes and proper consent where necessary.

As CPB currently does not carry consumer credit data in the form of payment profiles, this data is not used during the credit granting process and can have no impact on any credit granting enquiries. This furthermore only impacted deceased consumers.

“Should we receive notification to remove certain sections of data that we hold that are in contravention of the National Credit Act, we will endeavour to remove the data as soon as possible and will always aim to comply with both the letter and spirit of the law,” says Short.

“We have requested our external auditors to confirm that the data has in fact already been removed. A notice to this effect is available on request and will be forwarded to the Regulator by close of business 17 April 2014.

“We can furthermore confirm that we have removed ALL data in terms of the data amnesty and that the auditors will be providing the audit outcome to the Regulator’s office.

“We do respect the National Regulator’s feedback and will ensure that this information is not loaded again in future,” she said.

Consumer Profile Bureau will always be the bureau for the consumer first. CPB invites any consumer to request their free credit report from their offices or via the CPB website (www.cpbonline.co.za). It is crucial that consumers should be made aware of what information is available on their credit reports and it is their right to dispute any incorrect information.

CPB has had an influx of consumers that do not understand the data amnesty and various campaigns have been initiated to assist them on how to become credit-literate and in charge of their own credit profile.