Jon Brodkin reports:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is trying to rein in data brokers that sell Americans’ personal and financial information with a new rule that would classify the brokers as consumer reporting agencies. But the proposal has a dim future in the Trump administration, and the CFPB itself could face new limits planned by Republican politicians.
Currently, “the data broker industry collects and sells detailed information about Americans’ personal lives and financial circumstances to anyone willing to pay,” the CFPB announcement today said. The agency said it wants to “limit the sale of personal identifiers like Social Security Numbers and phone numbers collected by certain companies and make sure that people’s financial data such as income is only shared for legitimate purposes, like facilitating a mortgage approval, and not sold to scammers targeting those in financial distress.”
Read more at Ars Technica.