Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) announced during Sunday’s Video Message from the House Energy and Commerce Committee that he plans on introducing legislation that would require the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to get permission from each individual before collecting private financial data.
The CFPB has undertaken a plan to collect information from 80 percent of at least 1.16 billion credit cards that are currently in circulation.
Duffy is the House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee vice-chairman. The full committee on Thursday held a hearing entitled The Semi-Annual Report of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau where committee members questioned CFPB Director Richard Cordray.
“Though he was asked time and time again, he failed to give our committee and America a clear answer of how they are collecting this information from Americans and how they are using it,” Duffy said. “Our committee is going to continue to push to make sure the CFPB is transparent with the American people so we know how they are collecting and how they are using our financial information.”
Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) attended the hearing as well and said he was concerned about a massive data mining program also undertaken by the CFPB and the U.S. Trustee Program that entails obtaining personal financial records from thousands of bankruptcy proceedings.
Cordray did not answer questions related to the trustee program during the hearing, according to the Washington Examiner.