Question: Who is the "data owner"?

Ans: Any natural or artificial person with legal domicile in the country, whose data is being dealt with by the informatics systems.

Question: What right does the data owner have to know the information about himself/herself stored in public or private data bases?

Ans: Law No.25,326 on Personal Data Protection, regulated by Decree No.1558/2001, grants natural and artificial persons the right to access data concerning themselves stored in public and private Data Bases, and, if appropriate, to request updating thereof.

Question: What is a business report?

Ans: It includes personal data of commercial and credit nature as well as information about fulfillment of business obligations of data owners. Said data is provided to natural and artificial persons who request the same, due to business negotiations or transactions, not being allowed to use the same for other purposes pursuant to the Law on Personal Data Protection.

Question: What is the benefit of obtaining a business report?

Ans:The business and credit report is an essential contribution to the making of business and credit decisions. It allows the fulfillment of thousands of daily transactions (whether financial or concerning leases and/or sales of real property, cars, electric appliances, access to services, etc.).
For the credit supplier, it is one of many other tools his client will provide, which will enable him not only to validate the data supplied by the applicant but know his credit history as well.
It enables the data owner to have easy access to his information in the databases to be able to perform purchases or complete transactions he is interested in, in a faster way and using different means of payment.
Finally, the business report gives the data owner and the credit supplier reliability, quickness and access to the transactions they are interested in.

Question: What data is included in a business and credit report?

Ans: Only personal data of financial character is included, concerning economic and financial creditworthiness, obtained from sources available to the public and related to the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of financial obligations on temporary loan agreements, current accounts, credit cards, trusts, leasing, and credit in general, supplied by the creditor or anyone acting in the creditor's name or behalf.

Question: Is data owner's consent necessary to have the information?

Ans: Data owner's consent is not necessary since data is obtained from sources with unrestricted public access or it is data submitted by entities directly or through information transmitted to the BCRA (Central Bank of the Argentine Republic); being all these cases comprised within the exceptions set forth by Law No.25,326 to the need to have data owner's consent.

Question: Is it necessary to pay to have one's own business report?

Ans:Any person, once it has duly evidenced its identity, has the right to request and obtain for free, every 6 months, all the information about him/herself stored in a data base (this is called Right to Access). 
To exercise this right to access, do please get to the sector in this page and you will know how you can communicate with the Bureaus which are members of this Chamber. The term to receive the information as from your communication with the data base is 10 days.

Question: Can the information stored in the database be modified?

Ans: The Law on Personal Data Protection enables data owner to request the modification or updating of information about him/herself, the addition or clarification of data, or the erasure of false or inexact data.
The possibility of requesting to add information is useful when data owner loses his/her identity card or a checkbook, since when informing about the event, the financial market gets to know about this fact. 
It should be remembered that just modifying the information stored by a commercial and credit report bureau is not enough. It is essential to contact the entity which issued the information as well, to request it to stop issuing said data.

Question: How many commercial and credit bureaus are there in the market?

Ans: There are many bureaus which are engaged in rendering this information service. This Chamber of Commercial Information Bureaus (Cámara de Empresas de Información Comercial – CEIC due to its name in Spanish) gathers the most serious ones, but there are many other which are not part of this Chamber. To get to know them, you may consult the National Registry of Data Bases, under the National Management on Personal Data Protection (Dirección Nacional de Protección de Datos Personales).

Question: How long shall updating or deleting wrong information take?

Ans: Provided there are solid grounds for such a request, the one in charge of the data base shall correct, delete or update the information within a maximum term of 5 working days as from receiving the claim or knowing about the mistake, falseness or out of date data.

Question: How long may data remain in the public and private commercial and credit data bases?

Ans: There is no time limit for positive data publication, i.e. information concerning the fulfillment of assumed obligations. It is not the same in the case of information about delinquency, since the Law sets forth terms for deleting data and preventing its storage and release in order to grant the "right to oblivion".

Question: What is "right to oblivion"?

Ans: Section 26 of Law No.25,326 sets forth that business and credit repots may only include personal data which is significant to assess the economic and financial creditworthiness of persons during the last 5 years.