I recently published a short essay with Professor Danielle Citron critiquing the recent Supreme Court decision, TransUnion v. Ramirez (U.S. June 25, 2021) where the Court held that plaintiffs lacked standing to use FCRA’s private right of action to sue for being falsely labeled as terrorists in their credit reports. The essay is here: Daniel J. […]
Category: FCRA
Posts about FCRA by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
When Is a Person Harmed by a Privacy Violation? Thoughts on Spokeo v. Robins
When is a person harmed by a privacy violation? The U.S. Supreme Court just handed down a decision in an important case, Spokeo Inc. v. Robins. Plaintiff Thomas Robins sued Spokeo under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) because Spokeo had inaccurate information about him in its profile. Spokeo’s profiles are used by potential employers […]
Big Myths About Big Data
by Daniel J. Solove The FTC held a workshop this Monday about Big Data. The term “Big Data” is used everywhere these days, and depending upon who is talking about it, Big Data is either the hippest thing in the world and the producer of miracles that will save the human race, or it is […]
FreeCreditReport.com Spoof Song
I’ve blogged in the past about FreeCreditReport.com and the fact that I think it ought to be shut down. This is one of the rather obnoxious attempts by the credit reporting agencies to exploit people’s fears of identity theft as a tool to generate money. FreeCreditReport.com is not free. You can get your free credit […]
The Free Credit Reports That Aren’t Free
You’ve probably seen the commericals, which run incessantly on CNN and other cable channels. A happy young man says: “I’m thinking of a number . . . ” That number is a credit score, which you can obtain at a website called FreeCreditReport.com. You probably have heard that under a new federal law, credit reporting agencies […]
The Pentagon, the CIA, and National Security Letters
From the New York Times: The Pentagon and to a lesser extent the CIA have been using a little-known power to look at the banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage within the United States, officials said Saturday. The C.I.A. has also been issuing what are known as […]
The ChoicePoint Settlement
Recently, the FTC announced a settlement in its complaint against the data broker ChoicePoint for a data security breach that resulted in over 160,000 people’s personal information being sold to identity thieves. According to the Washington Post:
Free Credit Reports: My Exciting Adventure
Under the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, the credit reporting agencies must provide a yearly free credit report to individuals who request it. This was one of the benefits given to consumers by the law in return for extending the federal preemption of certain state law regulations.
Hurricane Katrina and Credit Scores
Bob Sullivan at MSNBC writes: A second storm surge may soon start slamming into Gulf coast residents hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Mounting unpaid bills will lead to a surge of black marks on victims’ credit reports, say consumer advocates, sinking their credit scores. And now, they say, efforts to convince the nation’s credit bureaus to […]
How Credit Reporting Agencies Are Scamming the Free Credit Report Requirement
This year, pursuant to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) of 2003, credit reporting agencies must provide people with one free credit report per year. This is gradually being phased in this year. People can obtain their reports from this website: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp. Earlier this year in his blog, law professor Eric Goldman discussed the difficulties and inconveniences he […]