The financial consumer The Protection Office (CFPB) has canceled the plans to introduce new rules designed to limit the capacity of American data brokers to sell sensitive information on Americans, including financial data, credit history and social security numbers.
The CFPB proposed the new rule in early December under the former director Rohit Chopra, who said that the changes were necessary to combat commercial surveillance practices which “threaten our personal security and undermine America’s national security”.
The agency discreetly removed the proposal on Tuesday morning, publishing an opinion in the Federal Register declaring that the rule is no longer “necessary or appropriate”.
The CFPB received more than 600 comments from the public this year concerning the proposal, entitled Protecting Americans against harmful data broker practices. The rule has been designed to ensure that data brokers obtain the consent of Americans before selling or sharing sensitive personal information, including financial data such as income. American credit agencies are already required to comply with these regulations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, one of the oldest privacy laws in the country.
In his opinion, the acting director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, wrote that he was withdrawing the proposal “in the light of the updates of office policies” and that she was not aligning with “the current FCRA interpretation”, that he added that the CFPB is “revising”.
The CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The data brokers operate in an industry of several billion dollars built on the collection and sale of detailed personal information – often without knowledge or consent of individuals. These companies create extensive profiles on almost all Americans, including very sensitive data such as precise history of location, political affiliations and religious beliefs. This information is frequently sold for purposes from marketing to the supervision of the police.
Many people are unaware that data brokers even exist, and even less than their personal information is exchanged. In January, the Texas Prosecutor General’s Office, led by Prosecutor General Ken Paxton, accused Arity – a data broker held by Allstate – to collect, use and sell data to unlimited driving of more than 45 million Americans to insurance companies without their consent.
Data brokers damage can be serious, even violent. The security security project, which is part of the national network to put an end to domestic violence, warns that the research websites of people, which compile data brokers information, can serve as tools for attackers to find information on their victims.
Last year, the analytical sauce – which deals with billions of location signals daily – supported a violation of data which could have exposed the movements of millions of people, including politicians and military personnel.
“Russell Vought is losing years of work bipartite and bipartite in order to support predatory surveillance of data brokers and profitable Americans,” said Sean Vitka, executive director of request for request, a non -profit organization that supported the rule. Addition of Vitka: “By removing the regulation of the CFPB data broker, the Trump administration ensures that the Americans will continue to be bombed by scam texts, calls and emails, and that the military and their families can be targeted by spies and singers.”
