Financial Rights Legal Centre and Consumer Action Law Centre have consistently called for the banning of screen scraping for over a decade. Screen scraping may have been embedded in business models around the country for responsible lending checks, loan and hardship applications and other purposes, but it has done so in a regulatory gap that has enabled this dangerous and unsafe practice to flourish.
Consumer losses arising out of scams and poor data handling practices and breaches are at record levels year on year, harming the most vulnerable consumers in Australia. With this Australians are growing ever more aware and wary of poor data collection and handling practices. Screen scraping is one of, if not the worst data collection and handling practices being conducted by financial services firms.
