Have you been included in an insolvency register without owing any invoice? Would you like to know which company included you in a database for debtors? How do you request the cancelation of your personal details once the invoice has been paid?
It is frequent for us to realise we have been included in one of these registers when we apply for a mortgage or a loan. In these cases, it is likely that we are not aware of our personal details in this file until the very moment in which our bank informs us of this contingency.
From a strictly legal point of view, the first issue we must analyse is whether our data has been included in compliance with the requirements laid down in article 29 of Organic Law 15/1999, passed on the 13th December, on Protection of Personal Data and the Royal Decree 1720/1999, passed on the 21st December, which regulates Protection of Personal Data. Article 29 requires the company which owns the file on information on creditworthiness and credit report, to notify the person concerned within 30 days. The information to be forwarded to the person shall refer to the data included in the file, the creditor who has submitted the information and the exercise of the rights of access, rectification and cancellation of data that protect the person concerned pursuant to the Data Protection Act.
The first step is to exercise the right of access to our personal data before the company that owns the bankruptcy file, all pursuant to the provisions laid down in Article 15 of the Data Protection Act. With the exercise of the right to access the information, we have to be informed of what data are included in this file, the amount of the debt, the creditor, the inclusion date and the companies that have accessed our data.
Once we are aware of this information, there are several possibilities to achieve the deletion of our data. Firstly, and as mentioned above, the inclusion of our data must have been notified to us by the owner of the file within thirty days. Were it not so, we may exercise our right to cancel the data, and if this did not occur, we may file a complaint against the owner of the registry before the Spanish Data Protection Agency. Under article 8.5 of Royal Decree 1720/2007 of 21 December, passing the Regulations implementing the Organic Law 15/1999 of 13 December on the protection of personal data, the deadline for approving cancellation of the data is ten days.
Furthermore, as well as in the aforementioned case, we may also cancel our data in very specific scenarios such as the inexistence of a prior claim for payment, payment of the debt or inexistence of the debt. Once the inexistence of the debt has been proved, we must submit a request for cancellation to the creditor, who shall inform the company that manages the file accordingly. In the event that the creditor does not respond, we may submit the same request before the company that owns the file, who has the obligation of cancelling our data.
All in all, we recommend that once the cancelation of the data has taken place, that the affected party presents its opposition pursuant to articles 34 and following of the Royal Decree 1720/2007.
Sometimes, wrong data is included in this file and this causes patrimonial losses to the people involved, which is why it is important for professionals to advise you on the range of solutions that best apply to your case.