This coming Thursday, Pam Dixon will be presenting new research on collections scoring, privacy, and impacts on low and middle income consumers. The Dixon/Gellman report, The Scoring of America, sparked a national conversation about analytics and fairness in the realm of consumer scores. This talk focuses on one particular category of scoring, that of using

WPF Executive Director Pam Dixon will be speaking on data, lending, and civil rights at the Georgetown University Law Center this Wednesday. She will be discussing research from her Scoring of America report, co-authored with Robert Gellman, and she will be highlighting new research on the topic of economically vulnerable populations. Event information: Wednesday, April

WPF submits comments to CFPB about the Universal Mortgage Identifier number and Home Mortgage Disclosure Act The World Privacy Forum has recommended privacy controls for a proposed Universal Home Mortgage Identifier number, along with other privacy protections to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in public comments on the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. The CFPB recognizes

The World Privacy Forum submitted comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission today requesting that the SEC do more to protect the privacy of consumers’ asset information. Asset information — the financial information attached to mortgages, car loans, and other consumer borrowing activities– is very attractive to the consumer data industry. We would be happier with the current SEC proposal if it were practical to keep all sensitive asset-level data under the direct control of the Commission or, perhaps, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Direct involvement by a federal agency, while no guarantee of a better outcome for data subjects, would provide better and clearer accountability for maintenance of the data as well as the possibility of meaningful enforcement.

In 2012, the US Federal Trade Commission brought a remarkable case against Equifax for selling consumer financial information — which included credit scores and late mortgage payment information– to companies offering services to consumers in financial distress. The World Privacy Forum commented to the FTC on this case, which was important for a number of reasons.