New Federal Database Will Track Americans' Credit Ratings, Other Financial Info

schwit1 (797399) writes "As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives — including their Social Security numbers — in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy. The FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions. FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress."

Comments

the Putin stage

[Anonymous Coward]

The point where your oligarchs completely stop pretending you have any democratic say in your country.

Re:the Putin stage

[ebno-10db]

i agree that its not the banks fault.

So a bank that hands somebody a few hundred thousand dollars without due diligence is not at fault?

While we're at it, what changed? I got my mortgage in 1999, and it came with all sorts of things beyond (a largely meaningless) credit check, like past tax returns showing level and continuity of income, disclosure of other debt, and all sorts of sniffing up my butt even though I have an honest face. What suddenly made banks so trusting? (hint: look up CDO's, CDS's, and all sorts of other three letter scams that were popular around 2000-2008).

i agree that its not the banks fault. Its the people who bought the homes, but its also the governments fault for mandating banks make the loans

Ah, the CRA red herring. Passed in 1977, but magically took 30 years before it had any ill effect.

Re:the Putin stage

[ganjadude]

I believe there were changes made in the 90s that mandated banks give out more loans

Re:the Putin stage

[geekoid]

And that wasn't even the real problem. the collapse happened becasue there where taking c/d/f loan and bundling them up with A loans and calling the whole package an 'A'
And we are talking abut millions of loans being resold.

The collapse would never have happened if banks where forced to sit on a loan the made for 5 years.

Re:the Putin stage

[CrimsonAvenger]

No, actually it doesn't.

There's a whole section of the Constitution concerning Congressional Powers (and another for Executive Powers).

And then there's the "if we didn't mention it, it's a prerogative of the States of the People" part (10th Amendment.)

Credit rating databases aren't new

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the private credit rating agencies that have all your personal credit information with zero transparency and accountability?

I'd rather this be in the public sphere where hopefully the agency has my interests at heart, rather than some private, for profit corporation.

Of course I live in Soviet-Canuckastan, so my opinion may differ from my "freedom loving free marketer loving" cousins to the south...

Re:Credit rating databases aren't new

[Connie_Lingus]

hate to burst your utopian-bubble, but the last time i checked, in world history Government has caused, roughly, about a bazillion times more pain and sufferings than any corporation could ever even begin to conceive of.

i can't get my head around this "trust the government" meme..."government" is nothing but a group of busybody people (yes the same type of people who work in corporations, and at taco bells, and everywhere else btw) who crave power and use personality and politics, NOT merit or compassion, to secure their base and influence and really care much less about your personal miseries and stresses then the typical corporate executive does.

its bad business to anger and kill your customers, governments rarely care about that sort of stuff, esp. they get in the way of maintaining their power over you and your life.

at least corporations have to compete for your blessings, and can pretty easily be displaced.

Mortgages are public records

[Animats]

Mortgages are public records. State and local governments already have all that data. Anyone can look it up. Data companies have already collected it for most parts of the US and use it for marketing.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is only going to have a 1 in 20 sample of the data. That's enough to look for improper activity by lenders. There's a lot of funny stuff going on in the foreclosure area, but nobody has been analysing that as a "big data" problem.

It's more than mortgages.

[TigerPlish]

According to TFA:

Late car payment? It'll be recorded.

Late creditcard payment? Skipped a child support payment? Forgot to pay the water bill? It'll be recorded. Or so TFA says.

The database will also encompass a mortgage holderâ(TM)s entire credit history, including delinquent payments, late payments, minimum payments, high account balances and credit scores, according to the notice.

Really?! "high account balances?!"

The composition of your family? Feast your eyes on this little nugget FTFA:

The two agencies will also assemble âoehousehold demographic data,â including racial and ethnic data, gender, marital status, religion, education, employment history, military status, household composition, the number of wage earners and a familyâ(TM)s total wealth and assets.

Folks.. it *is* big brother. People are focusing on only the mortgage aspect, but if TFA is to be believed, it's a financial dragnet.

What the fuck are they looking for? People spending large sums on strange things?

It won't be for bureaucratic purposes. This will get tied in with law enforcement somehow. That's just my gut feeling, folks... but I do really think LEOs will want in on this.

"Mr Smith, we'd like to have a word with you.. every two weeks you withdraw $100 cash, then as you can see in these pictures, the city's automated license plate readers catch you visiting the address of a known marijuana dealer every time you make that withdrawal. Please step into the van, sir."

It's coming. Maybe not for a bag of sweet leaf, but surely for other things.

2001 was the year the US ended. We sold out to the Gov't and did so willingly; because Terrorism!, because Think of the Children, because War on Drugs! But mainly because Terrorism.

To hell with the federal government, might as well call it the Reich now.