OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
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Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#2When 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".
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#3FYI 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 https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/vi... https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-k...
Online https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonita... http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-w... https://www.golem.de/news/openschufa-reverse-engineering-der... https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OpenSCHUFA-Projekt-w... https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/openschufa-algorithmu... https://www.futurezone.de/netzpolitik/article213448091/OpenS... https://netzpolitik.org/2018/jetzt-mitmachen-wir-knacken-die...
most motivational video, ever https://youtu.be/HBsD8BdXSCY
2 current related article worth reading http://www.tagesspiegel.de/wirtschaft/regierungsberater-gerd... http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/dass-wir-ueberwach...
(disclaimer I'm part of the team)
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#4When 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 secre…
How 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.
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#5When 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 secre…
How do you plan to do that? Which bits of information can you gather that allow you reverse engineer significant parts of their process?
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#6FYI 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 https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/vi... https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-k... Online https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonita... http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-w..…
Did 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...
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#7FYI 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 https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/vi... https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-k... Online https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonita... http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-w..…
Did 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...
a. is disclosed by our partner algorithmwatch
b. the funding is not for this project
c. see https://twitter.com/OpenSchufa/status/964408780162150400
"Die SCHUFA ist die bekannteste Auskunftei & Marktführer; wir fordern in unserer Projektbeschreibung u.a.: "Die SCHUFA & andere Auskunfteien müssen öffentlich & permanent darlegen, wie ihr Score funktioniert bzw. welche Modelle/Annahmen ihm zu Grunde liegen (Nachvollziehbarkeit)"
d. read https://okfn.de/blog/2018/02/openschufa-english/#update (we already requesting infoscore Consumer Data GmbH data)
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#8When 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 secre…
How do you plan to do that? Which bits of information can you gather that allow you reverse engineer significant parts of their process?
Consumer'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.
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#9Reading 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.
Re: OpenSCHUFA – Reverse-engineering the algorithm of the German credit score agency
#10FYI 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 https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/sendungen/wdr-aktuell/vi... https://www.n-tv.de/ratgeber/Aktivisten-wollen-Schufa-Code-k... Online https://www.wired.de/collection/life/openschufa-macht-bonita... http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/kreditwuerdigkeit-w..…
Did 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...
Infoscore is a company. They have a debt collection and a rating arm which are officially independent.
They also have a legal arm (Haas & Partner) in the same building (again "independent"), who collect legal fees on top of Infoscore's debt collection fees -- a practice that has been deemed illegal by several federal courts.
The legal arm is largely automated, so the "lawyer" fees are questionable.