Regulation of Credit Reporting

Abstract

Economic analysis of information yields the power to predict the business partner, the power to negotiate and to set contract terms. In the political realm information collections have been used in the past for political oppression. More and more policy makers are aware that people should not only enjoy protection of their information in the political realm but also in the economic one. Data protection originated in Europe, but around the world more and more countries are adopting data protection laws. In addition, there are several international institutions that deal with data protection, although for now it is not clear which institution will play the leading role in setting standards. In the following I discuss the data protection trends around the world. In addition, four country cases are presented in-depth: U.S., Germany, Great Britain and France.