A Senate committee has recommended that the consumer protection provisions of the Government's new credit reporting rules be strengthened.The Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012, which includes new comprehensive credit reporting rules, passed the House of Representatives last month.Last week, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee released its review of the Bill.The committee wants stronger protection of data that has been "de-identified" (taking the names and addresses out of the data) for research purposes by the inclusion of a specific prohibition on "re-identifying" such information in the Bill.The committee has also recommended that consumer protection be strengthened when it comes to correcting personal information. At the moment, the Bill allows an individual to request that information be corrected. The proposed change would impose an obligation on a credit provider or credit reporting body to take reasonable steps to have the information corrected and also create an obligation that the individual be notified about the outcome of the request. And a credit file would have to show that a correction is under investigation.The committee supported submissions that had argued listings should be corrected in exceptional circumstances, where a reasonable person would consider the listing unfair. Exceptional circumstances would include natural disasters, bank error, fraud, medical incapacity and mail theft. It has recommended that the Bill be amended to enable such corrections.Under the provisions of the Bill, the new credit reporting rules will allow credit reporting agencies to add the following information to credit files: the date a credit account was opened; the type of credit account opened; the date a credit account was closed; the current limit of each open credit account; and repayment performance history.The aim of the reforms is to facilitate better assessment of consumer credit risk by creating greater transparency. In return for giving the industry a more comprehensive view of the consumer's credit position, the Government has included tougher consumer protection provisions in the amendment. Information about repayment performance will only be available to licensed credit providers. The committee was lobbied by groups, including telecommunications companies and energy suppliers, seeking to have this information made more widely available.It rejected this push, stating: "The committee acknowledges the concerns of industry stakeholders that are not licensees under National Consumer Credit Protection Act. "However, the purpose of the credit reporting system is to balance an individual's interests in protecting their personal information with the need to ensure sufficient personal information is available to assist a credit provider to determine an individual's eligibility for credit."