{"id":35746,"date":"2019-12-16T09:09:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T09:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=35746"},"modified":"2019-12-16T09:09:06","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T09:09:06","slug":"fbi-secretly-demands-a-ton-of-consumer-data-from-credit-agencies-now-lawmakers-want-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ismartnetwork.co.uk\/?p=35746","title":{"rendered":"FBI secretly demands a ton of consumer data from credit agencies. Now lawmakers want answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently liberated documents<\/a> exposed the FBI has for years secretly challenged<\/a> vast amounts of Americans’ customer and financial information from the largest U.S. credit agencies.<\/p>\n

The FBI regularly uses these legal powers — known as national protection letters — to compel credit giants to turn over non-content information, such as records of buys and sites, that the agency deems necessary in national security investigations. But these notes have no judicial oversight and are typically filed with a gag order, preventing the recipient from disclosing the demand to anyone else — including the target of the letter.<\/p>\n

Only a few tech corporations, including Facebook<\/a>, Google<\/a>, and Microsoft<\/a>, have disclosed that they have ever received one or more national protection letters. Since the law changed<\/a> in 2015 in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden disclosures that revealed the scope of the U.S. government’s surveillance runnings, recipients have been allowed to petition the FBI to be cut loose from the gag provisions and publish the notes<\/a> with redactions.<\/p>\n

Tech companies have used” transparency reports” to inform their consumers of government demands for their data. But other major data collectors, like credit organizations, have failed to publish their figures altogether.<\/p>\n

Three lawmakers — Democratic senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren, and Republican senator Rand Paul — have transmitted letters to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, showing their “alarm” as to why the credit monsters have failed to disclose the number of government demands for consumer data they receive.<\/p>\n

” Because your corporation holds so much potentially sensitive data on so many Americans and accumulates this information without find consent from these people, you have a responsibility to be transparent about how you treat that data ,” the letters said<\/a>.” Regrettably, your company has not provided information to policymakers or the public about the type or the number of disclosures that you have made to the FBI .” <\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion did not respond to a request for comment outside business hours.<\/p>\n

It’s not known how many national protection notes were issued to the credit agencies since the legal powers were signed into statute in 2001. The New York Times said<\/a> “the member states national” security letters to credit agencies were a” small but telling fraction” of the overall half-million FBI-issued requires made to date.<\/p>\n

Other banks and financing institutions, as well as universities, cell service and internet providers, were targets of national protection notes, such documents revealed.<\/p>\n

The senators have given the agencies until December 27 to disclose the number of necessitates each has received.<\/p>\n

Many smart home device makers still won’t say if they give your data to the government<\/a><\/p>\n