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Committee member urges stronger consumer data protections, warns administration misuse of financial records
Summary
A committee member criticized the Trump administration’s handling of personal data, alleging it shared sensitive records with Homeland Security, pressured AI firms, and sought bank access to customer information, and urged strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect consumers.
A committee member told the House Financial Services forum that Americans have little control over how their digital and financial data are collected, sold and used and urged lawmakers to bolster consumer protections.
The lawmaker said companies “pay millions of dollars to access it, to analyze it, and profit from it,” while consumers receive none of those profits. The speaker also alleged that the Trump administration has “handed over sensitive personal data to the Department of Homeland Security to target immigrants living in the United States, including people who are here lawfully,” and warned that information trusted to government custody “is now being weaponized to track, monitor, and intimidate entire communities.”
Why it matters: The committee member framed the debate as both a privacy and a consumer-protection issue, arguing that financial data vulnerabilities threaten people’s economic security and civil liberties and that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) — created after the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers — should be strengthened rather than diminished.
The speaker criticized what they described as a pattern of administration conduct and congressional moves that reduce oversight: “Republicans voted to slash funding for regulators and weaken the federal workforce responsible for enforcing consumer protections,” the committee member said, adding that fewer investigators mean “fewer protections for hardworking families” and that some firms that admitted wrongdoing have been allowed to avoid meaningful accountability.
The lawmaker also raised related technology and law-enforcement concerns, saying Trump officials have pressured artificial-intelligence companies such as Anthropic over access to technology for defense or surveillance uses and alleging a proposal to require banks to provide customer records to immigration authorities that would “turn banks into ICE checkpoints.”
The committee member urged a policy approach that returns control to consumers: “Americans should have the right to control their own data. Plain and simple, consumers should decide who gets access to their information and how it is used,” the speaker said, calling for stronger guardrails on data brokers, credit reporting agencies and corporate data practices.
The exchange concluded with the chair of the panel agreeing that the issue merits committee attention. The transcript records no formal motion, vote, or directive arising from the remarks.
The committee member’s full remarks covered allegations about data sharing with Homeland Security, pressure on AI companies, proposals affecting banks’ records, and calls to bolster the CFPB. The committee did not vote or adopt legislation during this segment; next steps were not specified in the transcript.
