WPF Comments: Access to the CFPB consumer complaint database is vital to understanding and analyzing identity theft in the US

WPF has urged the CFPB to continue to maintain its consumer complaint database and make complaints available to the public. The CFPB is considering multiple potential changes to its consumer complaint database, including reducing access, among other potential changes.

In its comments, WPF explained how CFPB consumer complaint data has been vital to our ability to research and analyze where the crime of medical identity theft is trending in the US over time. WPF presented our most recent work on medical identity theft to the FTC during its Informational Harms workshop in December, 2017. The analysis in the report included data from the CFPB consumer complaint database. The full report, The Geography of Medical Identity Theft, is located at https://www.worldprivacyforum.org/2017/12/new-report-the-geography-of-medical-identity-theft/ for more information.

As one of the most important national and searchable consumer complaint databases, it is essential for the CFPB database to remain in good working order, and if anything, be expanded.

Related Documents:

Comments of the World Privacy Forum to the CFPB re: Consumer Complaint Database June 4, 2018

Posted June 4, 2018 in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Identity Theft, Medical Identity Theft, Public Comments

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.