Skip tracing

Skip tracing is an increasingly popular service used by creditors to assist in the search for debtors. The use of skip tracing may be useful both at the stage of amicable collection and in preparation for judicial enforcement of claims. Skip tracing may lead, among other things, to the identification of contact details and the debtor's address(es), which is obviously of considerable importance regardless of the stage at which the claim is enforced.

Skip tracing is a service that is present on the market but is legally demanding, in particular with regard to the acquisition and transfer of debtors' data in a legal manner, i.e. compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation - GDPR). It can therefore pose challenges for both the creditor and the service provider offering skip tracing.

We have been involved in a project involving the preparation of a skip tracing service. Both in providing an opinion on the idea and the proposed process for obtaining and sharing data, as well as in implementing the entire process enabling the exchange of debtors' personal data within the skip tracing service in compliance with the applicable legal order. In addition, our task was to prepare the content of the necessary and effective consents in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR, as well as to develop the contractual documentation concerning this demanding process.