There appears to be a lack of clarity from the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is leading different examination teams at the agency to handle a directive differently.
Worried about how employees at the agency were handling personally identifiable information (PII), Acting Director Mick Mulvaney has been rumored to be instituting a freeze on collecting personal information.
Examiners at the CFPB “may not yet” have a “clear direction” into how that data freeze should be implemented, according to a published report.
The CFPB has temporarily halted the use of an extranet, which companies were using to submit information being requested by agency examiners. That has led examiners to try and figure out how to implement a freeze, should it be directed by Mulvaney.
For example, examination teams have preliminarily described different approaches for how to establish workarounds, including providing all responses printed onto paper, to be shredded at the conclusion of the exam, or providing company computers for examiners to view company responses which may include PII. The freeze and such workarounds will likely increase the burden for companies undergoing examinations but may also reduce the scope of what examiners will be able to review.
Until the CFPB issues the appropriate guidance, it remains unclear how its examiners, and how companies being investigated by the agency, should proceed.
