White House scraps are planned to prevent data brokers from selling sensitive data to Americans

A senior Trump administration official canceled a plan that would prevent data brokers from selling personal and financial information to Americans, including social security numbers.

The Financial Consumer Protection Office (CFPB) said in December 2024 I planned to close the gap According to the Administrative Credit Law, the federal law that protects the personal data of Americans collected by consumer reporting agencies, such as credit offices and tenant examination companies. The rule had dealt with data brokers differently from any other company covered by federal law and will ask them to comply with the rules of privacy of the law.

The base was withdrawn early on Tuesday, according to List in the federal registry. The director of acting at CFPB, Russell Fion, who is also director of the White House management and budget office, wrote that the base “is not in line with the current interpretation of the office” of the law to report fair credit.

Wireless I mentioned for the first time Change the rule on Wednesday.

Data brokers are part of the billions of dollars in companies that benefit from collecting and selling access to huge amounts of personal and financial information to Americans. Then this personal data is sold to other companies, as well as Law enforcement agencies and intelligenceOften without explicit permission from individuals.

The collection of huge banks from data also comes with inherent risks. During the past year, no less than data brokers have been hacked, Millions of social security numbers leak online And exfiltrating A large collection of user website data Follow millions of people.

In 2024 alone, the Federal Trade Committee Blocking many data brokers from Collecting data and sharing it on individuals Without their permission, after allegations that follow people illegally.

Privacy advocates have long called on the government to use a fair credit reports to curb data brokers.

The CFPB decision to cancel the base comes days after the Financial Technology Association, which is the industry pressure group that represents the non -banking Fintech companies, written as a White House budget manager. The lobby group asked the administration to withdraw the CFPB base, claiming it will be “harmful to the efforts of financial institutions to discover fraud and prevent.”

CFPB did not return a request to comment.

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