A senior official of the Trump administration has eliminated a plan that would have prevented data corridors from selling personal and financial information of Americans, including social security numbers.
The consumer financial protection office (CFPB) said in December 2024 that he planned near the Law of Fair Credit Reports, the federal law that protects the personal data of Americans compiled by consumer report agencies, such as Credit Buraus and the tenant. The rule would have treated the data corridors differently from any other company covered by the Federal Law and would have forced them to comply with the privacy rules of the law.
The rule was removed early Tuesday, according to its list in the Federal Registry. The interim director of the CFPB, Russell Vought, who also serves as director of the White House Administration and Budget Office, wrote that the rule “is not aligned with the current interpretation agencies” of the Law of Fair Credit Reports.
Wired first reported the change of rule on Wednesday.
Data corridors are part of a multi -million dollar industry of companies that benefit from the collection and sale of access to fixed amounts of personal and financial information of Americans. Then, these personal data are sold to other companies, as well as the application and intelligence agencies of the law, often without the explicit permission of individuals.
The collection of huge data banks also comes with inherent risks. Around the last year, at least two data runners were pirate, spilling millions of social security numbers online and exfiltrating a great treasure or user location data that tracked millions of people in the whereabouts.
In 2024 alone, the Federal Commerce Commission prohibited several data corridors from collecting and sharing data on people without their permission, after the accusations of tracking people illegally.
Privacy defenders have long asked the government to use the fair credit reports law to control data corridors.
The CFPB decision to cancel the rule occurs days after the Financial Technology Association, a lobby group of the industry that represents the Banking and Fintech fellow, wrote to Vought in its capacity as Budget Director of the White House. The Lobby group asked the administration to withdraw the CFPBS rule, claiming that it would be “harmful to financial institutions” of efforts to decide and prevent fraud. “
CFPB did not return a request for comments.
