New Government Database Would Know Almost Everything About You

Millions of Americans may soon become part of an expanded database that would give two federal regulatory agencies an up-close and personal (perhaps too up-close and personal) view of their private financial lives that, if breached, could make for a really bad day for a whole lot of people.

The seed for this proposed database expansion was buried in the 261-page Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008; a requirement that the Federal Housing Finance Agency monitor the National Mortgage Database, and expand it, to provide a monthly report on the state of the mortgage market.

That didn’t sound unreasonable.

All the information collected in the expanded NMD would be shared with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and also used in an annual report on the mortgage market presented to Congress. Again, not unreasonable.

CFPB Director Richard Cordray’s Jan. 28 testimony before the House Financial Services Committee included a clear statement that the database would aggregate information -- but that there would be no personal identifiers attached to it. Anonymized data has become the coin of the realm and certainly can be helpful if utilized properly.

However, there’s much more to the story.