[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 189 (Friday, September 28, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 49072-49074]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-21162]


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BUREAU OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION

[Docket No. CFPB-2018-0031]


Request for Information Regarding Bureau Data Collections

AGENCY: Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

ACTION: Notice and request for information.

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SUMMARY: The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (Bureau) is 
seeking comments and information from interested parties to assist the 
Bureau in assessing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the 
Bureau's Data Governance Program and its Data Collections in support of 
the Bureau's work and, consistent with law, the Bureau is considering 
whether any changes to its Data Governance Program or Data Collections 
would be appropriate.

DATES: Comments must be received by December 27, 2018.

ADDRESSES: You may submit responsive information and other comments, 
identified by Docket No. CFPB-2018-0031, by any of the following 
methods:
     Electronic: Go to https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 
instructions for submitting comments.
     Email: [email protected]. Include Docket 
No. CFPB-2018-0031 in the subject line of the message.
     Mail: Comment Intake, Bureau of Consumer Financial 
Protection, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552.
     Hand Delivery/Courier: Comment Intake, Bureau of Consumer 
Financial Protection, 1700 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20552.
    Instructions: The Bureau encourages the early submission of 
comments. All submissions must include the document title and docket 
number. Please note the number of the topic on which you are commenting 
at the top of each response (you do not need to address all topics). 
Because paper mail in the Washington, DC area and at the Bureau is 
subject to delay, commenters are encouraged to submit comments 
electronically. In general, all comments received will be posted 
without change to https://www.regulations.gov. In addition, comments 
will be available for public inspection and copying at 1700 G Street 
NW, Washington, DC 20552, on official business days between the hours 
of 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. eastern time. You can make an appointment 
to inspect the documents by telephoning 202-435-7275.
    All submissions in response to this request for information, 
including attachments and other supporting materials, will become part 
of the public record and subject to public disclosure. Proprietary 
information or sensitive personal information, such as account numbers 
or Social Security numbers, or names of other individuals, should not 
be included. Submissions will not be edited to remove any identifying 
or contact information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ren Essene, Data Policy Manager; and 
Suzan Muslu, Data Governance Specialist, at 202-435-7700. If you 
require this document in an alternative electronic format, please 
contact [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection 
was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer 
Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) \1\ to implement and, where applicable, 
enforce Federal consumer financial law consistently to achieve certain 
specified ends. The Bureau collects, manages, and publishes information 
in the course of its activities pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act and 
other statutes. Congress delineated six ``primary functions'' of the 
Bureau in the Dodd-Frank Act.\2\ Some of those functions expressly 
require the Bureau to collect data; in other instances, collecting data 
is integral to enabling the Bureau to discharge a function. Consistent 
with the practice of many Federal agencies, including other financial 
regulators, the Bureau collects information to inform and guide its 
work. Like other agencies, the Bureau also works to protect its data by 
using a secure environment and employing best practices for data 
controls. For example, the Bureau limits who has access to its Data 
Collections, de-identifies data, and prohibits Bureau staff from trying 
to re-identify individuals from de-identified datasets.
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    \1\ Public Law 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376 (2010).
    \2\ 12 U.S.C. 5511(c).
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    The executive branch has also emphasized data use, and the 
President's Management Agenda directly addresses data and information 
technology as primary drivers of transformation. One of the Cross-
Agency Priority Goals is to leverage data as strategic assets to grow 
the economy, increase the effectiveness of the Federal government, 
facilitate oversight, and promote transparency. The Bureau aims to 
leverage data in the same way.
    The Bureau is issuing concurrently with this Request for 
Information (RFI) a report on the Sources and Uses of Data at the 
Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (``Data Report''), available on 
its website,\3\ which describes the sources and uses of the data that 
the Bureau intakes, including data that is obtained for one purpose and 
put to an additional use (``reuse''). The Data Report also describes 
the Bureau's data governance structure and processes, including the 
structure and processes governing the intake, use, access and 
disclosure of data. We refer to these activities as the Bureau's ``Data 
Governance Program.''
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    \3\ See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., ``Sources and Uses of 
Data at the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection,'' (Sept. 2018), 
available at https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/sources-and-uses-data-bureau-consumer-financial-protection/.
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    This RFI seeks input on several aspects of the Bureau's Data 
Governance Program and its Data Collection activities to date, and 
suggestions for future improvements. For purposes of this RFI, we use 
the phrase ``Data Collections'' to refer to Bureau data intakes outside 
of the Division of Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending or of the 
Office of Consumer Response. Data Collections include data that are 
collected by another agency and shared with the Bureau, data that are 
collected by a commercial entity and sold to the Bureau, public data 
that are downloaded by the Bureau, as well as instances in which the 
Bureau itself collects data either directly or through a contractor. 
The Data Report provides detailed information on the Bureau's Data 
Collections activities to date.

[[Page 49073]]

Request for Information Overview

    The Bureau is using this RFI to seek public input regarding the 
overall effectiveness and efficiency of the Bureau's Data Collections, 
as well as changes that it may make, consistent with applicable law, to 
the Data Governance Program at the Bureau; the Bureau's Data Collection 
practices related to privacy; the sources, uses, and scope of 
information the Bureau collects; ways the Bureau should or should not 
reuse data collected for one purpose to inform other functions of the 
Bureau; ways to reduce reporting burden; changes that may assist the 
Bureau to more effectively meet our statutory purpose and objectives; 
and other activities that the Bureau could engage in to make Data 
Collections from financial institutions more effective and efficient.
    The Bureau recently concluded a Call for Evidence in which it 
sought public comment, through a series of RFIs, on multiple aspects of 
the Bureau's work. This RFI is not intended to duplicate that work. 
Accordingly, the Bureau is not seeking comments on the following data 
or Data Collections that are addressed in other recent Bureau RFIs: (1) 
Information collected as part of the Bureau's consumer complaint 
process, public complaint reporting, and the Consumer Complaint 
Database; \4\ (2) the substance of any particular rule (for both rules 
the Bureau adopted and those it inherited) with separate information 
collection requirements; \5\ or (3) information collected through the 
Bureau's enforcement civil investigative demands (CIDs) or through 
supervisory activities.\6\ The suggested topics for this RFI (below) 
are not intended to cover data issues or Data Collections in those 
areas. The Bureau does, however, invite comments on the Bureau's reuse 
of data collected through consumer response and supervisory and 
enforcement activities.
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    \4\ See Request for Information Regarding Bureau Public 
Reporting Practices of Consumer Complaint Information, 83 FR 9499 
(Mar. 6, 2018); Request for Information Regarding the Bureau's 
Consumer Complaint and Consumer Inquiry Handling Processes, 83 FR 
16839 (Apr. 17, 2018).
    \5\ See Request for Information Regarding the Bureau's Adopted 
Regulations and New Rulemaking Authorities, 83 FR 12286 (Mar. 21, 
2018); Request for Information Regarding the Bureau's Inherited 
Regulations and Inherited Rulemaking Authorities, 83 FR 12881 (Mar. 
26, 2018).
    \6\ See Request for Information Regarding Bureau Civil 
Investigative Demands and Associated Processes, 83 FR 3686 (Jan. 26, 
2018); Request for Information Regarding the Bureau's Supervision 
Program, 83 FR 7166 (Feb. 20, 2018).
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    The Bureau encourages comments from all interested members of the 
public. The Bureau anticipates that the responding public may include 
entities subject to Bureau rules, trade associations and professional 
services organizations that represent these entities, individual 
consumers, consumer advocates, regulators, and researchers or members 
of academia.

Suggested Topics for Commenters

    To allow the Bureau to evaluate suggestions more effectively, the 
Bureau requests that, where possible, comments include:

     Specific discussions of any potential changes to our 
Data Collection processes, consistent with the laws providing the 
Bureau with data collection authority and the Bureau's statutory 
purposes and objectives, and including, in as much detail as 
possible, the nature of the requested change, and supporting data or 
other information on impacts, costs, benefits, or information 
concerning alignment with the processes of other agencies.
     Specific identification of any aspects of the Bureau's 
approach to its Data Collections that are working well, and 
including, in as much detail as possible, supporting data or other 
information on impacts, costs, benefits, or information concerning 
alignment with the processes of other agencies.

    The following sections list areas of interest on which commenters 
may want to focus. This non-exhaustive list is meant to assist in the 
formulation of comments and is not intended to restrict what may be 
addressed by the public. Commenters may comment on matters that are 
related to the Bureau's Data Collections, but do not appear in the list 
below. The Bureau requests that, in addressing these questions, 
commenters identify with specificity the Bureau's Data Collection, 
format, process, or delivery platform at issue, providing specific 
examples where appropriate. In discussing the Bureau's Data Collections 
to date, the Bureau also requests that commenters provide examples and 
supporting information where possible, as well as relevant information 
about how this information has been collected by an institution, by 
which parties, and in what ways. Commenters should feel free to comment 
on some or all of the questions below, but are encouraged to indicate 
in which area your comments are focused.
    The Bureau requests that commenters note their highest priorities, 
where possible, along with an explanation of how or why certain 
suggestions have been prioritized. Suggestions will be most helpful if 
they focus on revisions that the Bureau could implement without changes 
in the law, consistent with its existing statutory authorities.
    The Bureau is seeking feedback on all aspects of its Data 
Collections, including the following areas of interest:
    1. Aspects of the Bureau's Data Governance Program, including:
    a. Best practices for data governance that the Bureau should 
consider adopting; and
    b. Additional ways that the Bureau can improve its Data Governance 
Program, including improvements to its processes for collecting data, 
managing data, and releasing data.
    2. The Bureau's Data Collection practices related to privacy, 
including practices the Bureau should maintain or changes that the 
Bureau can feasibly make to further protect privacy without hindering 
the Bureau's ability to accomplish its objectives and statutory 
mandates. Topics may include:
    a. Use of aggregated data, including sources of aggregated data 
sufficient to effectively do the Bureau's work;
    b. Use of sampling methodologies;
    c. Use of de-identified data and de-identification processes;
    d. Use of direct identifiers;
    e. Notice to consumers regarding use of data known to be related to 
them; and
    f. How the Bureau's Data Collection practices related to privacy 
compare to other Federal agencies' practices.
    3. Changes the Bureau should, or should not, make to the sources, 
uses, and scope of its Data Collections.
    4. How and when data collected primarily for one Bureau function 
should, or should not, be used for other Bureau functions consistent 
with applicable law. Topics may include:
    a. The use of confidential supervisory information or confidential 
investigation information to inform multiple functions of the Bureau;
    b. The use of data obtained for purposes of research, market 
monitoring, or for assessing the effectiveness of significant rules to 
inform other functions of the Bureau;
    c. Reduction of burden on potential furnishers of data by use of 
the same data by other Bureau functions; and
    d. Other issues that the Bureau should consider when using a Data 
Collection for a function other than the primary function for which it 
was collected.
    5. Ways to improve Data Collection processes that reduce reporting 
burden without hindering the Bureau's ability to accomplish statutory 
objectives. Topics may include:
    a. Whether Bureau Data Collections overlap with information 
maintained by other governmental agencies in a way that makes it 
difficult or particularly burdensome for institutions to comply with 
Bureau Data Collections;
    b. Whether and how the Bureau should leverage existing industry 
data standards for particular markets that the Bureau regulates as part 
of its Data Collections;

[[Page 49074]]

    c. Whether Data Collection requests are aligned with how 
institutions maintain information or utilize current technologies;
    d. Whether Data Collections have provided helpful insight into 
particular markets, and whether there are other collections that would 
prove more insightful; and
    e. Ways the Bureau may interact with industry or consumer groups to 
gather suggestions on how to reduce reporting burden and increase the 
effectiveness of its Data Collections.
    6. Changes the Bureau could make to existing Data Collections, or 
potential new Data Collections the Bureau could collect, consistent 
with its statutory authority, to more effectively meet the statutory 
purposes and objectives as set forth in section 1021 of the Dodd-Frank 
Act:
    a. The statutory purposes set forth in section 1021(a) are:
    i. All consumers have access to markets for consumer financial 
products and services; and
    ii. Markets for consumer financial products and services are fair, 
transparent, and competitive.
    b. The statutory objectives set forth in section 1021(b) are:
    i. Consumers are provided with timely and understandable 
information to make responsible decisions about financial transactions;
    ii. Consumers are protected from unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts 
and practices and from discrimination;
    iii. Outdated, unnecessary, or unduly burdensome regulations are 
regularly identified and addressed in order to reduce unwarranted 
regulatory burdens;
    iv. Federal consumer financial law is enforced consistently, 
without regard to the status of a person as a depository institution, 
in order to promote fair competition; and
    v. Markets for consumer financial products and services operate 
transparently and efficiently to facilitate access and innovation.
    7. Other activities that the Bureau could engage in to make the 
Data Collection requests from financial institutions more effective and 
efficient.
    8. Areas where the Bureau has not exercised the full extent of its 
Data Collection authority; where Data Collections would be beneficial 
and align with the purposes and objectives of the applicable Federal 
consumer financial laws; and/or where the Bureau can better leverage 
data as a strategic asset to increase effectiveness.

    Authority: 12 U.S.C. 5511(c); 12 U.S.C. 5492(a).

    Dated: September 24, 2018.
Mick Mulvaney,
Acting Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
[FR Doc. 2018-21162 Filed 9-27-18; 8:45 am]
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