The members of the Senate First Committee today approved a bill that reforms the Habeas Data law on financial and credit information. The legislators withdrew the proposal to eliminate the data on debts that are less than 20% of the minimum wage (USD 50 approx) as soon as the debt is paid. According to what was approved by the committee, this type of data will be eliminated after at least two requests for the withdrawal of negative records and after a minimum of 20 days. The initiative is to be looked at by the Senate floor.

The bill proposes, amongst other things, the following:

• Positive information will remain indefinitely in the data banks of the information operators while negative information will remain as long as the debt lasts or a maximum of 2 years, and will expire after five years.
• The period in which to report a person after entering into default on their debts will be a maximum of 2 years.
• Victims of identity theft can claim the deletion of negative data.
• If the debtor is not notified of the negative credit report 20 days prior to its officialization in the registry, the report must be dismissed.
• For debtors who cancel their debts in the first six months of the law’s entry into force, their negative records from credit bureaus will be eliminated immediately.
• Positive financial and commercial data from Colombians abroad will be taken into account when carrying out risk assessments in Colombia.
• A person’s credit rating must be normalized immediately when the negative report is eliminated. Currently, the credit rating does not go up even if the debtor cancels the debt.

The initiative reformulates a bill that was shelved due to lack of debate in the previous legislative period. One of the authors of the bill, Senator David Barguil (Partido Conservador-ally of the ruling party) expressed satisfaction at its progress:“it is great news for millions of Colombians who deserve a second chance”.