{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/in-bipartisan-letter-senators-warren-paul-and-wyden-ask-credit-reporting-agencies-equifax-experian-and-transunion-for-transparency-about-their-handling-of-fbi-requests-for-consumer-financial-data", "In Bipartisan Letter, Senators Warren, Paul, and Wyden Ask Credit Reporting Agencies Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion for Transparency About Their Handling of FBI Requests for Consumer Financial Data", "2019-12-13", "2019", "2019-12", "Democrat", "House", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "New Documents Show FBI Has Frequently Requested Sensitive Information from Credit Bureaus\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWashington, D.C. -\r\nUnited States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Ron\r\nWyden (D-Ore.) yesterday sent letters to the Chief Executive Officers of the\r\nthree major credit reporting agenciesEquifax, Experian, and TransUnionregarding\r\nthe companies' lack of transparency in their handling of consumer financial\r\ninformation requested through national security letters (NSLs) from the Federal\r\nBureau of Investigation (FBI). The letters follow the recent release of\r\ndocuments gained via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit indicating that the\r\nthree credit reporting agencies have frequently been the recipients of such\r\nrequests. NSLs are akin to administrative subpoenas that require the\r\nrecipient to divulge information that the FBI deems relevant to national security\r\ninvestigations, which in the case of the credit agencies can even include full\r\ncredit reports. They do not require prior approval from a judge, and are frequently\r\naccompanied by nondisclosure orders preventing companies from notifying\r\nconsumers that the company has received a letter. Under the USA FREEDOM Act, companies that receive NSLs from\r\nthe FBI may publish information about the volume of NSLs they receive and\r\nrelease redacted versions of the letters if and when the nondisclosure orders\r\nare lifted by the FBI. However, while dozens of technology and\r\ntelecommunication companies have been transparent about their receipt and\r\nhandling of NSLs, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have not. Because your company holds so much potentially sensitive\r\ndata on so many Americans and collects this information without obtaining\r\nconsent from these individuals, you have a responsibility to be transparent\r\nabout how you handle that data, wrote the\r\nsenators in their letters. Unfortunately, your company has not provided\r\ninformation to policymakers or the public about the type or the number of\r\ndisclosures that you have made to the FBI. To gain a better understanding of the content that the credit\r\nreporting agencies share with the FBI, the senators asked the companies to\r\nanswer a series of questions about their receipt, handling, and reporting of\r\nNSLs, and asked if the companies would follow the lead of their peers and\r\nrelease regular transparency reports about NSLs. American consumers deserve to know what happens to the data\r\nthat your company collects, which can encompass all of the major financial\r\nrelationships that a consumer might have over the course of their lifetime, the senators continued.  The senators requested a response to their letter by\r\nDecember 20, 2019. Senator Warren has led efforts in the Senate to protect\r\nconsumer privacy, increase transparency and oversight, and hold consumer credit\r\nagencies accountable. In the aftermath of the massive Equifax breach\r\nin 2017, Senator Warren releasedthe\r\nfirst comprehensive review of over 20,000 consumer complaints received by\r\nCFPB in the wake of the breach and conducted a four-month long investigation that\r\nrevealed how Equifax failed to protect the personal information belonging to millions of Americans. Afterward she worked with\r\nher colleagues to take numerous oversight\r\nactions, call for stronger\r\nprotections, and in May 2019, she and the late Representative Elijah\r\nCummings (D-Md.), then-Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform,\r\nreintroduced the bicameralData\r\nBreach Prevention and Compensation Act to hold large credit reporting\r\nagencies accountable for data breaches involving consumer data.In September 2019, Senator Warren raised\r\nconcerns with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regardingreportsthatconsumers\r\nwho opted to receive $125 in compensation as a part of the Equifax breach\r\nsettlement received suspicious-looking emails forcing them to complete\r\nadditional, complicated steps in order to receive payments, which appeared\r\ndesigned to discourage applications.She later requested\r\nan investigationof FTC's misleading Equifax settlement descriptions\r\nwhich did not advise consumers affected by the Equifax breach of the likely\r\nreduction of their settlement payments. In August 2019, sheraised\r\nquestions withCapital One regarding a\r\nmassive data breach that compromised sensitive personal information of over 100\r\nmillion Capital One customers.In October 2019, she and Senator Wydendrew\r\nattention to a vulnerability in Amazon Web Services associated with the\r\nCapital One breach; Amazon fixed\r\nthe vulnerability weeks later.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/in-bipartisan-letter-senators-warren-paul-and-wyden-ask-credit-reporting-agencies-equifax-experian-and-transunion-for-transparency-about-their-handling-of-fbi-requests-for-consumer-financial-data"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3945552054792643, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}