In March of last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that an employee of the Bureau had been forwarding the confidential records of more than a quarter of a million consumers to their personal email account. These unauthorized actions not only compromised these consumers, but also compromised the confidential information of nearly 50 other institutions.
Ironically, the CFPB was enacted to protect consumers. But, somehow the agency still has not notified affected consumers of the data breach that the agency itself classified as “major.” So “major” in fact that it drew the attention and criticism from Republican lawmakers who deemed it appropriate to question the Bureau’s data handling procedures.
The actions taken by the Bureau demonstrates the sheer incompetence of an agency that overreaches at every turn. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) recently published a blog that highlighted the ongoing need for consumers to have protection from the Bureau itself.
John Berlau, CEI Senior Fellow and Director of Finance Policy, drew a connection between the CFPB’s data breach and its attempt to regulate yet another sector of consumer life. Berlau stated, “one thing the data breach also shows is that consumers really need protection from is the CFPB’s current attempted power grab for supervisory regulatory authority over FinTech apps and platforms.”
It doesn’t take an expert to understand how far the CFPB is reaching into some many areas it was never intended or authorized to in the first place.