Published: December 2024
Coalition urges CFPB to publish a proposed Consumer Reporting Rule as soon as possible
A coalition of advocates urged the CFPB to release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking as soon as possible to clarify the application of FCRA to data brokers, better regulate the use of personal information in consumer reporting, and keep the FCRA current with technological changes.
In a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a coalition of consumer advocates, including Consumer Action, urged the agency to move ahead with its Consumer Reporting Rulemaking by releasing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) as soon as possible. The advocates commended the CFPB for its recent steps to strengthen the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), including gathering information on how data brokers harm consumers, proposing potential rule updates that would better protect consumers from data brokers, releasing a proposed rule to remove medical debt from Americans’ credit reports, and promulgating guidance to highlight the ways that FCRA restricts worker surveillance. However, wide-ranging harms that data brokers cause and facilitate to consumers—particularly to vulnerable and marginalized populations—call for the prompt release of a proposed rule clarifying, among other things, that data brokers are consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) that must comply with FCRA. The groups also pressed the CFPB’s proposed rule to prohibit consumer reporting agencies from selling “credit header” information without a permissible purpose as defined by FCRA, and to address the dysfunctions in the FCRA-mandated dispute systems at the nationwide CRAs and other CRAs. Prompt release of a proposed FCRA rule would more quickly protect consumers from the harms caused by data brokers, the unregulated sale of credit header data, and present-day FCRA dispute resolution shortcomings.
Lead Organization
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
More Information
Read the letter here.
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