CFPB Announces Plans to Propose New Personal Data Protection Rules

CFPB Director Chopra recently announced that the Bureau will propose new rules this year regarding the sale of personal data by data brokers to foreign purchasers.  The announcement follows an executive order in which President Biden encouraged the CFPB to address the threat from data brokers collecting and disseminating consumer data to foreign countries and to enhance compliance with Federal consumer protection law.

The focus of the executive order directed the Attorney General to issue regulations that prohibit or restrict transactions involving bulk sensitive personal data or United State Government-related data to countries of concern.  For purposes of the order, “sensitive personal data” includes personal identifiers, personal financial data, geolocation and related sensor data, biometric identifiers, human genomic data, and personal health data that could be exploited by a country of concern to harm United States national security.  According to the accompanying fact sheet, this data is often sold to commercial data brokers, who in turn sell the data to counties of concern that can use the data to track Americans and conduct intrusive surveillance, scams, and blackmail.