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Federal Agency Data-Mining Hundreds of Millions of Credit Card Accounts

Posted by timothy on from the but-frogs-love-warm-water dept.

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."

6 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. I'm somewhat disturbed... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That this appears to state every person in the US, regardless of age, has on average three credit cards.

    Adjusting out the 17 and unders and the elderly who are less likely to be stacking up credit purchases on retirement budgets, this suggests about 5 cards per person.

    Yeek.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:I'm somewhat disturbed... by coolsnowmen · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think a lot of people have credit cards they no longer use, forgot about, and haven't completly canceled. It wasn't until I got my first house, and so got a long form credit report, that I realized I had a credit card still open that I got in college....for a free t-shirt and CD.

  2. Different from the NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you conduct a financial transaction in the USA it is not private in any way. This includes information on your account balances and your income, which the IRS is already required to know about. The FICO score and other credit information is interesting though: this is the first time the government has ever bothered to look at the private credit market's practices in a substantial manner beyond giving people the right to know what their FICO score is.

    1. Re:Different from the NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      > 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.

  3. All that information that they are collecting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All that information that they are going to collect has been collected without our permission for decades by the credit bureaus. ChoicePoint and the other background check companies (private spy agencies) accumulate even more data.

    We are also having to put more information on the web - like LinkedIN - in order to get employment. (I was told by several companies that they do ALL their recruitment via LinkedIN. )

    Do you really think when you apply for that job online via the outsourced web/HR firm that your data is kept confidential?!

    Aside from protecting myself from petty criminals (like publishing my SSN and DOB), I have pretty resided that my information is freely available to government and corporate interests and there is not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

    It's big business to pimp our data so that they configure out how to sell us more shit and how much they can charge for their shit.

    My only hope is that the CFPB will use this data wisely and find bank mistakes in our favor and order them to correct it.

  4. Want privacy? by tsprig · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... become Amish.