On August 15, 2023, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra spoke at a White House Roundtable on Protecting Americans from Harmful Data Practices where he announced that the Bureau has decided to launch a rulemaking to ensure that modern-day digital data brokers are not misusing or abusing consumers' sensitive data. According to Chopra, the proposals aim to ensure that modern-day data companies assembling profiles about consumers are meeting the requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Chopra highlighted two of the proposals. First is the proposal that will define a data broker that sells certain types of consumer data as a “consumer reporting agency” to better reflect today’s market realities. The second proposal will address confusion around whether so called “credit header data” is a consumer report. The intention of the said proposal is to clarify the extent to which credit header data constitutes a consumer report, reducing the ability of credit reporting companies to impermissibly disclose sensitive contact information that can be used to identify people who don’t wish to be contacted.
Read the full remarks here.