The CFPB takes on data: Regulating data brokers and the move towards open banking
Brittany Thomas, Senior Regulatory Analyst (New York)
Regulation of data brokers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
On 15th August 2023, in a speech at a White House roundtable on harmful data broker practices, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra announced the agency's plans to curb inappropriate use of consumer data by proposing rules that would subject data brokers to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Chopra shared two proposals:
- A data broker that sells consumer data, including payment history, income and criminal records, would be defined as a consumer reporting agency, and that data would constitute a consumer report.
- The extent to which “credit header data” constitutes a consumer report would be clarified to diminish credit reporting companies' power to disclose sensitive contact information without consent.
Chopra noted that a large swath of the data broker market runs on personal data sold by "credit reporting conglomerates".