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Federal Agency Data-Mining Hundreds of Millions of Credit Card Accounts
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Washington Examiner: "Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are conducting a massive, NSA-esque data-mining project collecting account information on an estimated 991 million American credit card accounts. It was also learned at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that CFPB officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on a second data-mining effort, this one focused on the 53 million residential mortgages taken out by Americans since 1998. ...Later in the hearing, [Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas] remarked that CFPB 'and NSA are in a contest of who can collect the most information,' ... although the CFPB disagreed with that statement. In previous testimony before Rep. Jeb Hensarling's panel, Antonakes said 'the combined data represents approximately 85-90 percent of outstanding card balances.' The Argus contract specifies that the company must collect 96 'data points' from each of the participating card issuers for each credit card account on a monthly basis. The 96 data points include a unique card-account identification reference number, ZIP code, monthly ending balance, borrower's income, FICO score, credit limit, monthly payment amount, and days past due. 'Would you object to getting permission from consumers, those people who you work for, before you collect and monitor their information?' Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., asked Cordray. 'That would make it impossible to get the data,' Cordray replied."
> your account balances and your income, which the IRS is already required to know about.
The part about account balances is not correct. Your 1099-INT does not contain your account balances. I've worked in a bank for nearly twenty years, and other than when we get court orders, I've never heard of someone giving an account balance to the IRS. I know for a fact there's no automated way for them to get that information since I'm the only person here that could write that code. The interest is reported because you pay taxes on it, but they do not receive the balance.
> people the right to know what their FICO score is.
You're wrong again. You do not have the right to know your FICO score. Fair, Isaac, and Company has no legal requirement to tell you their score. You do have the right to a copy of your credit report, but the FICO score is something else entirely.