CFPB Makes HMDA Data Sharing Proposal

The CFPB announced on Wednesday, September 20th, 2017, proposed guidance to limit the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data it shares publicly. The Bureau's 2015 HMDA amendments (discussed in our alerts here and here) revamped HMDA's coverage and processes, including requiring lenders to report vast swaths of new data about mortgage applicants and their loans. At the time, the Bureau said that it was still considering what portion of that data it would share with the public. It expressed sensitivity to the privacy and data security concerns implicated by gathering and maintaining such large amounts of personal data, which include applicant and borrower addresses, loan amounts, and credit scores, and sought public comment. In response, many consumer advocates and lenders expressed concern with sharing such sensitive information and urged the CFPB to limit the public sharing of that data.