U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-Ill.) and two others have introduced legislation to delay public release of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) information until the Comptroller General can study its impact on consumer privacy.
The bill, H.R. 4993, is known as the Homeowner Information Privacy Protection Act and is co-sponsored by Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) and Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah).
“My constituents do not want their sensitive information, such as credit scores, exposed to the world on an obscure page of a government website, but this is exactly what the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is proposing,” Hultgren said in a news release. “The bureau says such data would be protected. But experts agree that connecting the dots between such ‘anonymized’ information and the specific individual is too easy and puts their information and finances at risk of abuse.”
The bill requires the Comptroller General to conduct a study regarding the impact on consumer privacy resulting from new information collected under HMDA by covered banks and credit unions as required by an October 2015 final rule from the CFPB before any of this information can be made publicly available.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will study the probability of exposure of mortgage applicants to identity theft and emotional distress if information is made public, and will look at potential legal liability facing the bureau as a result.
The CFPB’s final HMDA rule adds 25 new data points for collection and modifies 14 others, in addition to the existing nine data fields that lenders already were required. Some of this data includes borrower age, credit score, property value, and interest rate, and the final rule does not stipulate what information will be made publicly available.
“Federal regulators should not put the personal information of American homeowners at unnecessary risk,” Hultgren stated. “The Homeowner Information Privacy Protection Act requires an independent study to ensure Americans are protected before regulators make new information available to the public.”
Cover Story: