Facebook and Your Credit Score: How Banks are Making the Connection
Your financial habits and the habits of your friends on Facebook could soon determine the state of your credit score, if the efforts of several online banks manage to enter the mainstream.
The first issue that pops to mind is discrimination. Banks should only have access to your financial records to determine your creditworthiness. Snooping around your Facebook profile will give them your age, gender, race and even marital status. This access to personal information could paint an unfair picture of your capacity to pay.
What’s worse is the risk of getting a hit to your credit score based on the people you’re “friends” with on Facebook.
“If you are a profitable customer for a bank, it suggests that a lot of your friends are going to be the same credit profile,” says CreditKarma.com CEO Ken Lin.
It just isn’t fair to be associated with the credit score of some random batch-mate from back in your elementary years whose posts you happen to “like” often.
This is one time where I’ll advocate rushing like mad to the federal government and getting them to put a doorstop to this exploitative use of social networks and blatant invasion of privacy.