Has Credit Profiling Gone Too Far?

Driving While Black, Flying While MidEastern/Muslim...most will admit that the science of profiling when over-zealously applied or even abused is unfair. But there is a type of profiling most people readily submit to that touches all. That is credit profiling. FICO, Emperica, and Beacon scores are numerical representations of systematic statistical profiling of everyone's credit history. And while none of these formulas factor in race, age, gender, or any other protected classification; we still need to be concerned on exactly how the bureaus an the bans are using this information.

I stumble across this news story and was astounded. As an credit industry professional this was the first time that I ha heard confirmed that banks were analyzing anything other than monetary financial data in determining credit worthiness. The notion that where I shop either a store, vendor, neighborhood, etc predicts my ability to pay is going too far. It smacks of secret big brother tactics. I want to know if an how companies are interpreting an applying such subjective, personal info. Watch the video an give me your feedback. I will certainly be following this issue more closely.

I culdnt figure out how to embed this vieo but its worth going over to ABC News to see.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6748132