Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On September 13, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission published final revisions to five rules promulgated pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), to clarify that the rules apply only to motor vehicle dealers. The final revisions were made to bring the rules in line with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Entities other than motor vehicle dealers are still subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB's”) FCRA counterpart rules and the concurrent jurisdiction of the CFPB and FTC to enforce them.

The FTC’s final revisions clarified that the following five rules apply only to motor vehicle dealers:

• Address Discrepancy Rule: Outlines the obligations of users of consumer reports when they receive a notice of address discrepancy from a nationwide consumer reporting agency (“CRA”).
• Affiliate Marketing Rule: Gives consumers the right to restrict a person from using certain information obtained from an affiliate to make solicitations to the consumer.
• Furnisher Rule: Requires entities that furnish information to CRAs to establish and implement reasonable written policies and procedures regarding the accuracy and integrity of the information relating to consumers provided to a CRA.
• Pre-screen Opt-Out Notice Rule: Outlines requirements for those who use consumer report information to make unsolicited credit or insurance offers to consumers; and
• Risk-Based Pricing Rule: Requires those who use information from a consumer report to offer less favorable terms to consumers to provide them with a notice about the use of such data.

The final revisions do not make substantive changes to these rules.

The FTC also determined that there is a continuing need for the prescreen opt-out notice rule. As part of the final revisions, the FTC reinstated its model prescreen opt-out notice and added to the model notice a reference to the consumer reporting agencies’ opt-out website.