551 posts categorized "Federal / U.S. Government" Feed

FTC To Distribute $31 Million In Refunds To Affected Lifelock Customers

U.S. Federal Trade Commission logo The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday the distribution of about $31 million worth of refunds to certain customers of Lifelock, an identity protection service. The refunds are part of a previously announced settlement agreement to resolve allegations that the identity-theft service violated a 2010 consent order.

Lifelock has featured notable spokespersons, including radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, television personality Montel Williams, actress Angie Harmon, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is now the personal attorney for President Trump.

The FTC announcement explained:

"The refunds stem from a 2015 settlement LifeLock reached with the Commission, which alleged that from 2012 to 2014 LifeLock violated an FTC order that required the company to secure consumers’ personal information and prohibited it from deceptive advertising. The FTC alleged, among other things, that LifeLock failed to establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program to protect users’ sensitive personal information, falsely advertised that it protected consumers’ sensitive data with the same high-level safeguards used by financial institutions, and falsely claimed it provided 24/7/365 alerts “as soon as” it received any indication a consumer’s identity was being used."

Lifelock logo The 2015 settlement agreement with the FTC required LifeLock agreed to pay $100 million to affected customers. About $68 million has been paid to customers who were part of a class action lawsuit. The FTC is using the remaining money to provide refunds to consumers who were LifeLock members between 2012 and 2014, but did not receive a payment from the class action settlement.

The FTC expects to mail about one million refund checks worth about $29 each.

If you are a Lifelock customer and find this checkered history bothersome, Consumer Reports has some recommendations about what you can do instead. It might save you some money, too.


3 Countries Sent A Joint Letter Asking Facebook To Delay End-To-End Encryption Until Law Enforcement Has Back-Door Access. 58 Concerned Organizations Responded

Plenty of privacy and surveillance news recently. Last week, the governments of three countries sent a joint, open letter to Facebook.com asking the social media platform to delay implementation of end-to-end encryption in its messaging apps until back-door access can be provided for law enforcement.

Facebook logo Buzzfeed News published the joint, open letter by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, United Kingdom Home Secretary Priti Patel, acting US Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, and Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton. The letter, dated October 4th, was sent to Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook. It read in part:

"OPEN LETTER: FACEBOOK’S “PRIVACY FIRST” PROPOSALS

We are writing to request that Facebook does not proceed with its plan to implement end-to-end encryption across its messaging services without ensuring that there is no reduction to user safety and without including a means for lawful access to the content of communications to protect our citizens.

In your post of 6 March 2019, “A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking,” you acknowledged that “there are real safety concerns to address before we can implement end-to-end encryption across all our messaging services.” You stated that “we have a responsibility to work with law enforcement and to help prevent” the use of Facebook for things like child sexual exploitation, terrorism, and extortion. We welcome this commitment to consultation. As you know, our governments have engaged with Facebook on this issue, and some of us have written to you to express our views. Unfortunately, Facebook has not committed to address our serious concerns about the impact its proposals could have on protecting our most vulnerable citizens.

We support strong encryption, which is used by billions of people every day for services such as banking, commerce, and communications. We also respect promises made by technology companies to protect users’ data. Law abiding citizens have a legitimate expectation that their privacy will be protected. However, as your March blog post recognized, we must ensure that technology companies protect their users and others affected by their users’ online activities. Security enhancements to the virtual world should not make us more vulnerable in the physical world..."

The open, joint letter is also available on the United Kingdom government site. Mr. Zuckerberg's complete March 6, 2019 post is available here.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a Request For Proposals (RFP) seeking quotes from technology companies to build a real-time social media monitoring tool. It seems, such a tool would have limited utility without back-door access to encrypted social media accounts.

In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) filed a lawsuit to force Apple Inc. to build "back door" software to unlock an attacker's iPhone. Apple refused as back-door software would provide access to any iPhone, not only this particular smartphone. Ultimately, the FBI found an offshore tech company to build the backdoor. Later that year, then FBI Director James Comey suggested a national discussion about encryption versus safety. It seems, the country still hasn't had that conversation.

According to BuzzFeed, Facebook's initial response to the joint letter:

"In a three paragraph statement, Facebook said it strongly opposes government attempts to build backdoors."

We shall see if Facebook holds steady to that position. Privacy advocates quickly weighed in. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) wrote:

"This is a staggering attempt to undermine the security and privacy of communications tools used by billions of people. Facebook should not comply. The letter comes in concert with the signing of a new agreement between the US and UK to provide access to allow law enforcement in one jurisdiction to more easily obtain electronic data stored in the other jurisdiction. But the letter to Facebook goes much further: law enforcement and national security agencies in these three countries are asking for nothing less than access to every conversation... The letter focuses on the challenges of investigating the most serious crimes committed using digital tools, including child exploitation, but it ignores the severe risks that introducing encryption backdoors would create. Many people—including journalists, human rights activists, and those at risk of abuse by intimate partners—use encryption to stay safe in the physical world as well as the online one. And encryption is central to preventing criminals and even corporations from spying on our private conversations... What’s more, the backdoors into encrypted communications sought by these governments would be available not just to governments with a supposedly functional rule of law. Facebook and others would face immense pressure to also provide them to authoritarian regimes, who might seek to spy on dissidents..."

The new agreement the EFF referred to was explained in this United Kingdom announcement:

"The world-first UK-US Bilateral Data Access Agreement will dramatically speed up investigations and prosecutions by enabling law enforcement, with appropriate authorisation, to go directly to the tech companies to access data, rather than through governments, which can take years... The current process, which see requests for communications data from law enforcement agencies submitted and approved by central governments via Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA), can often take anywhere from six months to two years. Once in place, the Agreement will see the process reduced to a matter of weeks or even days."

The Agreement will each year accelerate dozens of complex investigations into suspected terrorists and paedophiles... The US will have reciprocal access, under a US court order, to data from UK communication service providers. The UK has obtained assurances which are in line with the government’s continued opposition to the death penalty in all circumstances..."

On Friday, a group of 58 privacy advocates and concerned organizations from several countries sent a joint letter to Facebook regarding its end-to-end encryption plans. The Center For Democracy & Technology (CDT) posted the group's letter:

"Given the remarkable reach of Facebook’s messaging services, ensuring default end-to-end security will provide a substantial boon to worldwide communications freedom, to public safety, and to democratic values, and we urge you to proceed with your plans to encrypt messaging through Facebook products and services. We encourage you to resist calls to create so-called “backdoors” or “exceptional access” to the content of users’ messages, which will fundamentally weaken encryption and the privacy and security of all users."

It seems wise to have a conversation to discuss all of the advantages and disadvantages; and not selectively focus only upon some serious crimes while ignoring other significant risks, since back-door software can be abused like any other technology. What are your opinions?


51 Corporations Tell Congress: A Federal Privacy Law Is Needed. 145 Corporations Tell The U.S. Senate: Inaction On Gun Violence Is 'Simply Unacceptable'

Last week, several of the largest corporations petitioned the United States government for federal legislation in two key topics: consumer privacy and gun reform.

First, the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) at 51 corporations sent a jointly signed letter to leaders in Congress asking for a federal privacy law to supersede laws emerging in several states. ZD Net reported:

"The open-letter was sent on behalf of Business Roundtable, an association made up of the CEOs of America's largest companies... CEOs blamed a patchwork of differing privacy regulations that are currently being passed in multiple US states, and by several US agencies, as one of the reasons why consumer privacy is a mess in the US. This patchwork of privacy regulations is creating problems for their companies, which have to comply with an ever-increasing number of laws across different states and jurisdictions. Instead, the 51 CEOs would like one law that governs all user privacy and data protection across the US, which would simplify product design, compliance, and data management."

The letter was sent to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Senator Roger F. Wicker (Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation), Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives), Kevin McCarthy (Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives), Frank Pallone, Jr. (Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives), and other ranking politicians.

The letter stated, in part:

"Consumers should not and cannot be expected to understand rules that may change depending upon the state in which they reside, the state in which they are accessing the internet, and the state in which the company’s operation is providing those resources or services. Now is the time for Congress to act and ensure that consumers are not faced with confusion about their rights and protections based on a patchwork of inconsistent state laws. Further, as the regulatory landscape becomes increasingly fragmented and more complex, U.S. innovation and global competitiveness in the digital economy are threatened. "

That sounds fair and noble enough. After writing this blog for more than 12 years, I have learned that details matters. Who writes the proposed legislation and the details in that legislation matter. It is too early to tell if the proposed legislation is weaker or stronger than what some states have implemented.

Some of the notable companies which signed the joint letter included AT&T, Amazon, Comcast, Dell Technologies, FedEx, IBM, Qualcomm, Salesforce, SAP, Target, and Walmart. Signers from the financial services sector included American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, MasterCard, State Farm Insurance, USAA, and Visa. Several notable companies did not sign the letter: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Verizon.

Second, The New York Times reported that executives from 145 companies sent a joint letter to members of the U.S. Senate demanding that they take action on gun violence. The letter stated, in part (emphasis added):

"... we are writing to you because we have a responsibility and obligation to stand up for the safety of our employees ,customers, and all Americans in the communities we serve across the country. Doing nothing about America's gun violence crisis is simply unacceptable and it is time to stand with the American public on gun safety. Gun violence in America is not inevitable; it's preventable. There are steps Congress can, and must take to prevent and reduce gun violence. We need our lawmakers to support common sense gun laws... we urge the Senate to stand with the American public and take action on gun safety by passing a bill to require background checks on all gun sales and a strong Red Flag law that would allow courts to issue life-saving extreme risk protection orders..."

Some of the notable companies which signed the letter included Airbnb, Bain Capital, Bloomberg LP, Conde Nast, DICK'S Sporting Goods, Gap Inc., Levi Strauss & Company, Lyft, Pinterest, Publicis Groupe, Reddit, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Twitter, Uber, and Yelp.

Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to address gun violence. So far, the U.S. Senate has done nothing. Representative Kathy Castor (14th District in Florida), explained the actions the House took in 2019:

"The Bipartisan Background Checks Act that I championed is a commonsense step to address gun violence and establish measures that protect our community and families. America is suffering from a long-term epidemic of gun violence – each year, 120,000 Americans are injured and 35,000 die by firearms. This bill ensures that all gun sales or transfers are subject to a background check, stopping senseless violence by individuals to themselves and others... Additionally, the Democratic House passed H.R. 1112 – the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019 – which addresses the Charleston Loophole that currently allows gun dealers to sell a firearm to dangerous individuals if the FBI background check has not been completed within three business days. H.R. 1112 makes the commonsense and important change to extend the review period to 10 business days..."

Findings from a February, 2018 Quinnipiac national poll:

"American voters support stricter gun laws 66 - 31 percent, the highest level of support ever measured by the independent Quinnipiac University National Poll, with 50 - 44 percent support among gun owners and 62 - 35 percent support from white voters with no college degree and 58 - 38 percent support among white men... Support for universal background checks is itself almost universal, 97 - 2 percent, including 97 - 3 percent among gun owners. Support for gun control on other questions is at its highest level since the Quinnipiac University Poll began focusing on this issue in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre: i) 67 - 29 percent for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons; ii) 83 - 14 percent for a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases. It is too easy to buy a gun in the U.S. today..."


Google And YouTube To Pay $170 Million In Proposed Settlement To Resolve Charges Of Children's Privacy Violations

Google logo Today's blog post contains information all current and future parents should know. On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a proposed settlement agreement where YouTube LLC, and its parent company, Google LLC, will pay a monetary fine of $170 million to resolve charges that the video-sharing service illegally collected the personal information of children without their parents' consent.

YouTube logo The proposed settlement agreement requires YouTube and Google to pay $136 million to the FTC and $34 million to New York State to resolve charges that the video sharing service violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule. The announcement explained the allegations:

"... that YouTube violated the COPPA Rule by collecting personal information—in the form of persistent identifiers that are used to track users across the Internet—from viewers of child-directed channels, without first notifying parents and getting their consent. YouTube earned millions of dollars by using the identifiers, commonly known as cookies, to deliver targeted ads to viewers of these channels, according to the complaint."

"The COPPA Rule requires that child-directed websites and online services provide notice of their information practices and obtain parental consent prior to collecting personal information from children under 13, including the use of persistent identifiers to track a user’s Internet browsing habits for targeted advertising. In addition, third parties, such as advertising networks, are also subject to COPPA where they have actual knowledge they are collecting personal information directly from users of child-directed websites and online services... the FTC and New York Attorney General allege that while YouTube claimed to be a general-audience site, some of YouTube’s individual channels—such as those operated by toy companies—are child-directed and therefore must comply with COPPA."

While $170 million is a lot of money, it is tiny compared to the $5 billion fine by the FTC assessed against Facebook. The fine is also tiny compared to Google's earnings. Alphabet Inc., the holding company which owns Google, generated pretax net income of $34.91 billion during 2018 on revenues of $136.96 billion.

In February, the FTC concluded a settlement with Musical.ly, a video social networking app now operating as TikTok, where Musical.ly paid $5.7 million to resolve allegations of COPPA violations. Regarding the proposed settlement with YouTube, Education Week reported:

"YouTube has said its service is intended for ages 13 and older, although younger kids commonly watch videos on the site and many popular YouTube channels feature cartoons or sing-a-longs made for children. YouTube has its own app for children, called YouTube Kids; the company also launched a website version of the service in August. The site says it requires parental consent and uses simple math problems to ensure that kids aren't signing in on their own. YouTube Kids does not target ads based on viewer interests the way YouTube proper does. The children's version does track information about what kids are watching in order to recommend videos. It also collects personally identifying device information."

The proposed settlement also requires YouTube and Google:

"... to develop, implement, and maintain a system that permits channel owners to identify their child-directed content on the YouTube platform so that YouTube can ensure it is complying with COPPA. In addition, the companies must notify channel owners that their child-directed content may be subject to the COPPA Rule’s obligations and provide annual training about complying with COPPA for employees who deal with YouTube channel owners. The settlement also prohibits Google and YouTube from violating the COPPA Rule, and requires them to provide notice about their data collection practices and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children."

The complaint and proposed consent decree were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. After approval by a judge, the proposed settlement become final. Hopefully, the fine and additional requirements will be enough to deter future abuses.


How Trump’s Political Appointees Overruled Tougher Settlements With Big Banks

[Editor's note: today's guest post, by reporters at ProPublica, discusses enforcement approaches by the United States government with the banking industry. It is reprinted with permission.]

By Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, and Kevin Wack, American Banker

Since Donald Trump’s election, federal white-collar enforcement has taken a big hit. Fines and settlements against corporations have plummeted. Prosecutions of individuals are falling to record lows.

But just how these fines and settlements came to be slashed is less well understood. Two settlements with giant banks over financial crisis-era misdeeds provide a window into how the Trump administration has eased up on corporate wrongdoers.

In settlements last year with the two big U.K.-based banks, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, political appointees at the Trump administration Justice Department took the unusual step of overruling staff prosecutors to reduce the settlements sought, leaving billions of dollars in potential recoveries on the table, according to four people familiar with the settlements.

In the case of RBS, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that the charges should not be pursued as a criminal case, as the prosecutorial team advocated, but rather as a less serious civil one.

Both cases were developed by the Obama administration DOJ and involved accusations that the banks misled buyers of residential mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis. Prosecutors seemingly found numerous examples of bankers knowingly selling lemons to their customers. The mortgages they were putting into securities were “total fucking garbage,” one RBS executive said in a phone call that was recorded and cited in a DOJ filing. A Barclays banker said a group of loans “scares the shit out of me.” Mortgages that went into the two banks’ securities lost a total of $73 billion, according to calculations used by the government.

In March 2018, the DOJ settled with Barclays for $2 billion, a sum dictated by Trump appointees that was far below what the staff prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn had sought. The settlement with RBS occurred in August 2018, for $4.9 billion. After Rosenstein downgraded the case from criminal to civil, other Trump appointees concluded that the settlement amount should be about half of what staff prosecutors in the District of Massachusetts had sought.

DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Sutton said that the Barclays and RBS settlements held the banks accountable for serious misconduct, and that the penalties recovered from the banks were fair and proportionate compared with those previously obtained from other banks. She did not respond to detailed questions about how the two settlements were reached and why key decisions were dictated from Washington. “They were largely negotiated by career attorneys in the Department and U.S. Attorneys’ offices with the support and collaboration of Department leadership,” Sutton wrote in an email.

Aspects of how the DOJ came to settle the cases have been recounted. The New York Times reported on Rosenstein’s decision in the RBS case. But this is the first extensive account of how the banks secured the favorable outcomes.

The British banks employed an old playbook, one that proved effective with the Trump administration: Hire prominent former high-level DOJ officials who were now at major law firms. These attorneys won access to the top echelons of the Trump DOJ, where they found an audience receptive to their arguments that the staff prosecutors were unfairly singling out their clients for excess punishment.

The two cases stemmed from the Obama administration’s efforts to bring charges against banks for misdeeds that contributed to the financial crisis. Critics assailed the Obama DOJ for what they perceived as tardy and inadequate policing of financial crisis malfeasance. For example, the Obama DOJ did not prosecute any top bankers for actions related to the crisis. But it did belatedly bring civil charges, and it reached large settlements with numerous banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. Moreover, the Obama-era DOJ consistently required the banks to acknowledge their bad acts, a practice that has ceased during the Trump administration.

As the Obama administration was winding up in the fall of 2016, the DOJ had not completed all that it aspired to. It rushed to reach settlements with foreign banks that had shown less urgency to resolve the allegations than some of their U.S. counterparts.

Less than a week before Trump’s inauguration, the DOJ announced that Deutsche Bank had agreed to pay a $3.1 billion civil penalty, and that Credit Suisse would pay $2.48 billion. But there were holdouts, including Barclays and RBS.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn wanted Barclays to pay somewhere within a range in the high single digits of billions of dollars, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. Barclays balked, drawing a line at $2 billion, according to a Bloomberg News account.

Barclays hired an all-star team of defense lawyers. The roster included Karen Seymour, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell who had previously served as chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and has since become general counsel at Goldman Sachs.

Also on Barclays’ legal team was Kannon Shanmugam, a former high-ranking official in the George W. Bush DOJ who was then a partner at Williams & Connolly.

With the two sides far apart in December 2016, the DOJ sued Barclays. Prosecutors also brought civil charges against two former executives at the bank who played key roles in its pre-crisis subprime mortgage operations.

Suing was an unusual step — cases against large corporations normally settle before a complaint is filed — and it was meant to send an implicit message to Barclays. Because the DOJ had been forced to go to court, the British bank could expect the price tag of an eventual settlement to be higher.

Barclays was making the opposite bet: that it would be able to negotiate a more favorable settlement once Trump appointees were in place at DOJ.

In a 192-page complaint, the DOJ alleged that Barclays engaged in fraud on a massive scale, deceiving investors about the characteristics of mortgages used to create securities that sold for tens of billions of dollars.

A Barclays employee commented during a 2006 phone call that one particular pool of mortgages was “about as bad as it can be,” but he did not abandon the loans or modify the bank’s standard disclosures to investors, according to the government’s complaint. In another example, when that same banker said that a particular pool of loans “scares the shit out of me,” because he believed the company that originated the mortgages was likely to go bankrupt soon, Barclays bought the loans anyway. The bank deliberately did not conduct due diligence on the mortgages and then packaged them into bonds, the complaint asserted, all the while falsely telling a rating agency that due diligence had been done on 100% of the loans.

“More than half of the underlying loans defaulted,” the complaint stated, causing huge losses for investors.

Barclays’ legal team argued that the bank should not pay higher penalties in a settlement than other banks had paid relative to their market share. Barclays had been a relatively small player in the residential mortgage-backed securities, or RMBS, market, and its settlement should be sized accordingly, they reasoned.

This was an argument that the DOJ had long rejected. In a 2014 speech, then-Associate Attorney General Tony West argued that a firm’s market share should not outweigh evidence of the extent of its wrongdoing. “The facts and evidence of a particular case — they are what will ultimately matter the most,” he said.

In the Barclays matter, prosecutors in Brooklyn believed they had a strong case. The judge assigned to the case, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, seemed to agree. “This complaint is probably one of the more fulsome complaints I’ve ever seen,” Matsumoto said at an April 2017 hearing.

But the view that ultimately mattered was the one held by a new crop of officials at Main Justice, the DOJ’s headquarters in Washington. Besides Rosenstein, who was not involved in the Barclays case, key players in the RMBS settlements included Trump administration political appointees in the associate attorney general’s office, according to people familiar with the talks.

Steve Cox, the deputy associate attorney general, oversaw the cases, reporting to Jesse Panuccio, the principal deputy associate attorney general. In February 2018, Panuccio became acting associate attorney general, the No. 3 position at the DOJ, after Rachel Brand resigned from the post.

Neither had much experience with federal prosecutions. Panuccio was a former lawyer to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, as well as the chief labor and land use official in Florida, and Cox was a onetime associate at WilmerHale who had spent six years as a corporate counsel at an oil company, Apache Corporation, before joining the DOJ.

Following communications with the Barclays legal team, DOJ officials in Washington conveyed a message to the staff prosecutors in Brooklyn: settle the case within a narrow range around $2 billion, or we will take the negotiations out of your hands. The instruction came via a spreadsheet that listed the dollar range.

For DOJ officials in Washington to dictate specific terms of a settlement was unusual. U.S. attorney offices generally have wide latitude in choosing what they investigate and in making prosecutorial decisions. “Involvement of DOJ in cases handled in the U.S. attorney’s offices is not common” but happens on big cases from time to time, said Harry Sandick, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at Patterson Belknap. During Obama-era negotiations, Main Justice had tried to show a united front with prosecutors who’d investigated the RMBS cases, according to former department officials.

At least one prosecutor acknowledged the internal rift between Brooklyn and Washington to the Barclays’ defense team, according to a source familiar with the matter. Once prosecutors in Brooklyn learned Main Justice’s position, this prosecutor communicated to the Barclays side that the bank had prevailed. Recalling how the deal went down, one government official said: “It seemed like a defeat.”

The staff prosecutors weren’t just disappointed about settling for a fraction of what they had sought back in 2016. They had brought civil charges against two former Barclays employees, Paul Menefee and John Carroll, and in exchange for dismissal, the two men agreed to pay a combined $2 million. But the agreement did not include language that precluded Barclays from footing the bill. That meant that Menefee and Carroll, who did not admit wrongdoing, might not have to pay a dime out of their own pockets.

Lawyers for Menefee and Carroll did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said, “The substantial penalty Barclays and its executives had to pay was an important step in recognizing the harm that was caused to the national economy and to investors in RMBS.”

At Main Justice, at least one official also regretted the Barclays deal, but from the opposite perspective. Cox told a prosecutor that he wished the Barclays settlement had been even smaller, but he explained that it wasn’t feasible to go lower because it had been reported that the bank offered to pay $2 billion, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Cox did not respond to requests for comment.

Panuccio, who stepped down from the DOJ in the spring, declined to answer specific questions, citing the confidentiality of the department’s process. In an email response, he said, “The general narrative the questions seem to suggest is belied by the facts — including the fact that DOJ recovered historically significant sums in its 2018 and 2019 FIRREA settlements, and the fact that DOJ filed a major FIRREA suit against UBS in November 2018.” (FIRREA is the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989, a law dating from the savings and loan scandals of the late ’80s.)

Barclays declined to comment.

While Barclays had been in active negotiations with the DOJ during the Obama administration, the RBS defense team had not. RBS did not want to enter negotiations until the prosecutors dropped the criminal investigation.

Boston prosecutors declined to do so. Mortgages that went into RBS’ securities suffered about $54 billion in losses, ravaging their customers’ investments. The prosecutors believed they had compiled damning evidence that RBS officials knew what they were doing was wrong. In one example, RBS’ chief credit officer in the United States called the mortgages that were going into the securities “total fucking garbage” with “fraud [that] was so rampant … [and] all random,” according to calls the prosecutors later quoted in the statement of facts against the bank. He stated that “the loans are all disguised to, you know, look okay kind of … in a data file.”

In 2016, the RBS defense team, which included former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, of WilmerHale, appealed to Stuart Delery, then the third-highest official at the DOJ. Delery knew Gorelick from their time at the DOJ. Despite that relationship, according to a person knowledgeable about the matter, Delery said he would not interfere with an ongoing investigation at a U.S. attorney’s office. (Delery did not respond to requests for comment. Gorelick directed questions to RBS.)

Then came November. A few months later, the Trump appointees arrived.

For a while, nothing changed. The Boston prosecutors continued their investigation, more convinced than ever that the RBS conduct merited a criminal charge. They wrote what’s known as a “prosecution memo,” which they had begun during the Obama administration, describing the underlying criminal acts under FIRREA.

Such a move would have been groundbreaking. The Obama DOJ had used FIRREA, but for civil charges. And the Boston prosecutors did not want to stop there. They argued for first charging the bank criminally, and then moving on to seek criminal charges against individual bankers. Those would have been the first of their kind.

They never got that far.

In time, Trump political appointees such as Panuccio and Cox began to figure out their way around the department. The RBS defense team, including Gorelick, requested meetings with top officials. Gorelick again had a connection with a key DOJ official. She had worked with Cox, earlier in his career when he was an associate at WilmerHale, defending BP in investigations of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

The defense group now also included Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis, representing the British government’s interest in RBS. Filip, who did not respond to requests for comment, has a special stature. During his tenure as deputy attorney general, he had codified the conditions prosecutors had to assess in bringing cases against corporations, which are today known as the “Filip Factors.” Prosecutors are supposed to weigh a variety of issues, such as how serious offenses are and whether the company has cooperated with investigators. As a private sector big hitter, companies hire him, in the view of prosecutors, to explain why his factors are not met in a given case.

The RBS team was able to meet with the No. 2 at the DOJ, Rosenstein. It’s unusual, though not unprecedented, for a defense team to get access to such a high-level official. The RBS team persuaded Rosenstein.

In the spring of 2018, Rosenstein informed Andrew Lelling, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, that his office couldn’t pursue criminal charges against RBS. Rosenstein said he didn’t want the DOJ treating RBS differently from other banks, which faced only civil investigations. (The Massachusetts U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the details of the RBS settlement. Rosenstein, who left the DOJ in May, did not respond to inquiries.)

RBS spokeswoman Linda Harper confirmed that the Boston U.S. attorney’s office had recommended criminal prosecution and that the bank had met first with Delery and then with Rosenstein.

“The argument we made was for fairness and parity,” she said. The bank’s defense team, she added, argued that “Main Justice should ensure that like cases are treated alike.”

The Boston team was disappointed and angry. It argued that prosecutors charge people when they have the necessary evidence, even if they cannot charge all people who committed the same crime. And it maintained that the decision went against department policy. In May 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo directing prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious provable crimes carrying the highest penalties.

“It calls into question whether the memo meant what it says when it came to white-collar prosecutions,” a person familiar with the decision said.

Once the case was downgraded, the Boston team turned to deciding on the monetary settlement. Internally, prosecutors had discussed seeking a settlement in the $9 billion to $10 billion range, reflecting their belief that the RBS conduct was especially egregious.

At one point in the spring after the Rosenstein meetings, Main Justice sent Boston a similar spreadsheet that it sent to other U.S. attorney offices concerning their open cases, including those against Barclays, Japanese bank Nomura and Swiss bank UBS. For RBS, the range was between around $4.5 billion to about $6.6 billion.

The Boston prosecutors tried to get the settlement as close to the top of the range as they could. But they were thwarted even in that attempt. Cox told the Boston team that the DOJ would “call the bluff” of RBS and tell the bank it would take $4.9 billion.

Prosecutors thought the DOJ had caved. They complained to Cox that Main Justice had authorized the office to seek as much as $6.6 billion. Cox’s reply: But RBS won’t go that high.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.


FBI Seeks To Monitor Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, And Other Social Media Accounts For Violent Threats

Federal Bureau of Investigation logo The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued on July 8th a Request For Proposals (RFP) seeking quotes from technology companies to build a "Social Media Alerting" tool, which would enable the FBI to monitor in real-time accounts in several social media services for violence threats. The RFP, which was amended on August 7th, stated:

"The purpose of this procurement is to acquire the services of a company to proactively identify and reactively monitor threats to the United States and its interests through a means of online sources. A subscription to this service shall grant the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) access to tools that will allow for the exploitation of lawfully collected/acquired data from social media platforms that will be stored, vetted and formatted by a vendor... This synopsis and solicitation is being issued as Request for Proposal (RFP) number DJF194750PR0000369 and... This announcement is supplemented by a detailed RFP Notice, an SF-33 document, an accompanying Statement of Objectives (SOO) and associated FBI documents..."

"Proactively identify" suggests the usage of software algorithms or artificial intelligence (AI). And, the vendor selected will archive the collected data for an undisclosed period of time. The RFP also stated:

"Background: The use of social media platforms, by terrorist groups, domestic threats, foreign intelligence services, and criminal organizations to further their illegal activity creates a demonstrated need for tools to properly identify the activity and react appropriately. With increased use of social media platforms by subjects of current FBI investigations and individuals that pose a threat to the United States, it is critical to obtain a service which will allow the FBI to identify relevant information from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other Social media platforms in a timely fashion. Consequently, the FBI needs near real time access to a full range of social media exchanges..."

For context, in 2016 the FBI attempted to force Apple Computer to build "backdoor software" to unclock an alleged terrorist's iPhone in California. The FBI later found an offshore technology company to build its backdoor.

The documents indicate that the FBI wants its staff to use the tool at both headquarters and field-office locations globally, and with mobile devices. The SOO document stated:

"FBI personnel are deployed internationally and sometimes in areas of press censorship. A social media exploitation tool with international reach and paired with a strong language translation capability, can become crucial to their operations and more importantly their safety. The functions of most value to these individuals is early notification, broad international reach, instant translation, and the mobility of the needed capability."

The SOO also explained the data elements too be collected:

"3.3.2.2.1 Obtain the full social media profile of persons-of-interest and their affiliation to any organization or groups through the corroboration of multiple social media sources... Items of interest in this context are social networks, user IDs, emails, IP addresses and telephone numbers, along with likely additional account with similar IDs or aliases... Any connectivity between aliases and their relationship must be identifiable through active link analysis mapping..."
"3.3.3.2.1 Online media is monitored based on location, determined by the users’ delineation or the import of overlays from existing maps (neighborhood, city, county, state or country). These must allow for customization as AOR sometimes cross state or county lines..."

While the document mentioned "user IDs" and didn't mention passwords, the implication seems clear that the FBI wants both in order to access and monitor in real-time social media accounts. And, the "other Social Media platforms" statement raises questions. What is the full list of specific services that refers to? Why list only the three largest platforms by name?

As this FBI project proceeds, let's hope that the full list of social sites includes 8Chan, Reddit, Stormfront, and similar others. Why? In a study released in November of 2018, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found:

"Right-wing extremism in the United States appears to be growing. The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017. The recent pipe bombs and the October 27, 2018, synagogue attack in Pittsburgh are symptomatic of this trend. U.S. federal and local agencies need to quickly double down to counter this threat. There has also been a rise in far-right attacks in Europe, jumping 43 percent between 2016 and 2017... Of particular concern are white supremacists and anti-government extremists, such as militia groups and so-called sovereign citizens interested in plotting attacks against government, racial, religious, and political targets in the United States... There also is a continuing threat from extremists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. But the number of attacks from right-wing extremists since 2014 has been greater than attacks from Islamic extremists. With the rising trend in right-wing extremism, U.S. federal and local agencies need to shift some of their focus and intelligence resources to penetrating far-right networks and preventing future attacks. To be clear, the terms “right-wing extremists” and “left-wing extremists” do not correspond to political parties in the United States..."

The CSIS study also noted:

"... right-wing terrorism commonly refers to the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities whose goals may include racial, ethnic, or religious supremacy; opposition to government authority; and the end of practices like abortion... Left-wing terrorism, on the other hand, refers to the use or threat of violence by sub-national or non-state entities that oppose capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism; focus on environmental or animal rights issues; espouse pro-communist or pro-socialist beliefs; or support a decentralized sociopolitical system like anarchism."

Terrorism is terrorism. All of it needs to be prosecuted including left-, right-, domestic, and foreign. (This prosecutor is doing the right thing.) It seems wise to monitor the platform where suspects congregate.

This project also raises questions about the effectiveness of monitoring social media? Will this really works. Digital Trends reported:

"Companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon already use algorithms to predict your interests, your behaviors, and crucially, what you like to buy. Sometimes, an algorithm can get your personality right – like when Spotify somehow manages to put together a playlist full of new music you love. In theory, companies could use the same technology to flag potential shooters... But preventing mass shootings before they happen raises thorny legal questions: how do you determine if someone is just angry online rather than someone who could actually carry out a shooting? Can you arrest someone if a computer thinks they’ll eventually become a shooter?"

Some social media users have already experienced inaccuracies (failures?) when sites present irrelevant advertisements and/or political party messaging based upon supposedly accurate software algorithms. The Digital Trends article also dug deeper:

"A Twitter spokesperson wouldn’t say much directly about Trump’s proposal, but did tell Digital Trends that the company suspended 166,513 accounts connected to the promotion of terrorism during the second half of 2018... Twitter also frequently works to help facilitate investigations when authorities request information – but the company largely avoids proactively flagging banned accounts (or the people behind them) to those same authorities. Even if they did, that would mean flagging 166,513 people to the FBI – far more people than the agency could ever investigate."

Then, there is the problem of the content by users in social media posts:

"Even if someone does post to social media immediately before they decide to unleash violence, it’s often not something that would trip up either Twitter or Facebook’s policies. The man who killed three people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California posted to Instagram from the event itself – once calling the food served there “overprices” and a second that told people to read a 19th-century pro-fascist book that’s popular with white nationalists."

Also, Amazon got caught up in the hosting mess with 8Chan. So, there is more news to come.

Last, this blog post explored the problems with emotion recognition by facial-recognition software. Let's hope this FBI project is not a waste of taxpayer's hard-earned money.


What Can Be Done Right Now to Stop a Basic Source of Health Care Fraud

[Editor's note: today's post, by reporters at ProPublica, discusses fixes for the security issues discussed in a prior post. It is reprinted with permission.]

By Marshall Allen, ProPublica

In our story about the convicted health care con man David Williams, we detailed how the Texas personal trainer made off with millions by billing some of the nation’s largest health insurers as if he were a doctor providing medical services.

Williams cannily exploited gaping loopholes in the health insurance system that allowed him almost unfettered entry. Taking commonsense steps to close those loopholes, experts say, could block other fraudsters from entry.

1. No one checks to see whether people getting federal ID numbers that allow them to bill insurers have valid licenses. They could.

Anyone billing an insurance company needs a National Provider Identifier, or NPI number. The number is obtained through Medicare, a federal agency that covers people over 65 as well as those with disabilities. But Medicare doesn’t verify that NPI applicants who claim to be licensed are, indeed, licensed by their state’s regulators. The agency could do a license check in less than a minute online or in milliseconds if the process is automated.

Medicare said federal regulations do not allow it to verify NPI applicants’ credentials, so the Department of Health and Human Services might need to revise the regulations. Congress could also order the reform.

2. Insurance companies don’t always verify that the people they are paying are licensed medical providers. They could.

Williams avoided scrutiny from insurers by billing as an out-of-network provider, so he didn’t have a contract with them and didn’t have his credentials verified before receiving payments. At Williams’ trial on federal fraud charges, representatives from the insurance companies testified that it’s not cost effective to review every claim. Almost all are automatically paid.

At a minimum, insurers could ensure that anyone billing them has the proper licensing before a payment is made. Again, this screening would take seconds or less.

Regulators could also require that insurers verify the licenses of those they pay. Some experts say it may take state and federal legislation to mandate it. Officials from America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group for the insurers, declined to comment on this suggestion.

3. Insurance companies aren’t reporting most cases of suspected fraud to state and federal regulators. They could.

Many states have a law in place that requires insurers to report suspected cases of fraud to state regulators. This allows regulators to spot serial fraudsters and trends, and it helps officials build criminal and civil cases. But the states have a mishmash of requirements, and many don’t do audits to make sure cases are being reported.

At least three insurance companies caught Williams committing fraud. But the Texas Department of Insurance only received one referral about the case, according to internal documents. If all three insurers that Williams defrauded had referred him, his case could have been prioritized and stopped sooner.

The existing state laws don’t apply to self-funded plans where employers pay for the health benefits. Those are overseen by the federal government. And no federal law requires insurers who administer self-funded plans to report suspected cases of fraud.

State and federal laws would need to be changed to require the consistent reporting of suspected fraud. Experts say audits, and the potential for fines, may also be needed to spur the insurers to file the reports.

Filed under:

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.


FTC Levies $5 Billion Fine, 'New Restrictions, And Modified Corporate Structure' To Hold Facebook Accountable. Will These Actions Prevent Future Privacy Abuses?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on July 24th a record-breaking fine against Facebook, Inc., plus new limitations on the social networking service. The FTC announcement stated:

"Facebook, Inc. will pay a record-breaking $5 billion penalty, and submit to new restrictions and a modified corporate structure that will hold the company accountable for the decisions it makes about its users’ privacy, to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that the company violated a 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information... The settlement order announced [on July 24th] also imposes unprecedented new restrictions on Facebook’s business operations and creates multiple channels of compliance..."

During 2018, Facebook generated after-tax profits of $22.1 billion on sales of $55.84 billion. While a $5 billion fine is a lot of money, the company can easily afford the record-breaking fine. The fine equals about one month's revenues, or a little over 4 percent of its $117 billion in assets.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission. New compliance system for Facebook. Click to view larger version The FTC announcement explained several "unprecedented" restrictions in the settlement order. First, the restrictions are designed to:

"... prevent Facebook from deceiving its users about privacy in the future, the FTC’s new 20-year settlement order overhauls the way the company makes privacy decisions by boosting the transparency of decision making... It establishes an independent privacy committee of Facebook’s board of directors, removing unfettered control by Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg over decisions affecting user privacy. Members of the privacy committee must be independent and will be appointed by an independent nominating committee. Members can only be fired by a supermajority of the Facebook board of directors."

Facebook logo Second, the restrictions mandated compliance officers:

"Facebook will be required to designate compliance officers who will be responsible for Facebook’s privacy program. These compliance officers will be subject to the approval of the new board privacy committee and can be removed only by that committee—not by Facebook’s CEO or Facebook employees. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and designated compliance officers must independently submit to the FTC quarterly certifications that the company is in compliance with the privacy program mandated by the order, as well as an annual certification that the company is in overall compliance with the order. Any false certification will subject them to individual civil and criminal penalties."

Third, the new order strengthens oversight:

"... The order enhances the independent third-party assessor’s ability to evaluate the effectiveness of Facebook’s privacy program and identify any gaps. The assessor’s biennial assessments of Facebook’s privacy program must be based on the assessor’s independent fact-gathering, sampling, and testing, and must not rely primarily on assertions or attestations by Facebook management. The order prohibits the company from making any misrepresentations to the assessor, who can be approved or removed by the FTC. Importantly, the independent assessor will be required to report directly to the new privacy board committee on a quarterly basis. The order also authorizes the FTC to use the discovery tools provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to monitor Facebook’s compliance with the order."

Fourth, the order included six new privacy requirements:

"i) Facebook must exercise greater oversight over third-party apps, including by terminating app developers that fail to certify that they are in compliance with Facebook’s platform policies or fail to justify their need for specific user data; ii) Facebook is prohibited from using telephone numbers obtained to enable a security feature (e.g., two-factor authentication) for advertising; iii) Facebook must provide clear and conspicuous notice of its use of facial recognition technology, and obtain affirmative express user consent prior to any use that materially exceeds its prior disclosures to users; iv) Facebook must establish, implement, and maintain a comprehensive data security program; v) Facebook must encrypt user passwords and regularly scan to detect whether any passwords are stored in plaintext; and vi) Facebook is prohibited from asking for email passwords to other services when consumers sign up for its services."

Wow! Lots of consequences when a manager builds a corporation with a, "move fast and break things" culture, values, and ethics. Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt for the Department of Justice’s Civil Division said:

"The Department of Justice is committed to protecting consumer data privacy and ensuring that social media companies like Facebook do not mislead individuals about the use of their personal information... This settlement’s historic penalty and compliance terms will benefit American consumers, and the Department expects Facebook to treat its privacy obligations with the utmost seriousness."

There is disagreement among the five FTC commissioners about the settlement, as the vote for the order was 3 - 2. FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter stated in her dissent:

"My principal objections are: (1) The negotiated civil penalty is insufficient under the applicable statutory factors we are charged with weighing for order violators: injury to the public, ability to pay, eliminating the benefits derived from the violation, and vindicating the authority of the FTC; (2) While the order includes some encouraging injunctive relief, I am skeptical that its terms will have a meaningful disciplining effect on how Facebook treats data and privacy. Specifically, I cannot view the order as adequately deterrent without both meaningful limitations on how Facebook collects, uses, and shares data and public transparency regarding Facebook’s data use and order compliance; (3) Finally, my deepest concern with this order is that its release of Facebook and its officers from legal liability is far too broad..."

FTC Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson stated on July 24th in an 8-page joint statement (Adobe PDF) with Chairman Joseph J. Simons of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia:

"In 2012, Facebook entered into a consent order with the FTC, resolving allegations that the company misrepresented to consumers the extent of data sharing with third-party applications and the control consumers had over that sharing. The 2012 order barred such misrepresentations... Our complaint announced today alleges that Facebook failed to live up to its commitments under that order. Facebook subsequently made similar misrepresentations about sharing consumer data with third-party apps and giving users control over that sharing, and misrepresented steps certain consumers needed to take to control [over] facial recognition technology. Facebook also allowed financial considerations to affect decisions about how it would enforce its platform policies against third-party users of data, in violation of its obligation under the 2012 order... The $5 billion penalty serves as an important deterrent to future order violations... For purposes of comparison, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is touted as the high-water mark for comprehensive privacy legislation, and the penalty the FTC has negotiated is over 20 times greater than the largest GDPR fine to date... IV. The Settlement Far Exceeds What Could be Achieved in Litigation and Gives Consumers Meaningful Protections Now... Even assuming the FTC would prevail in litigation, a court would not give the Commission carte blanche to reorganize Facebook’s governance structures and business operations as we deem fit. Instead, the court would impose the relief. Such relief would be limited to injunctive relief to remedy the specific proven violations... V. Mark Zuckerberg is Being Held Accountable and the Order Cabins His Authority Our dissenting colleagues argue that the Commission should not have settled because the Commission’s investigation provides an inadequate basis for the decision not to name Mark Zuckerberg personally as a defendant... The provisions of this Order extinguish the ability of Mr. Zuckerberg to make privacy decisions unilaterally by also vesting responsibility and accountability for those decisions within business units, DCOs, and the privacy committee... the Order significantly diminishes Mr. Zuckerberg’s power — something no government agency, anywhere in the world, has thus far accomplished. The Order requires multiple information flows and imposes a robust system of checks and balances..."

Time will tell how effective the order's restrictions and $5 billion are. That Facebook can easily afford the penalty suggests the amount is a weak deterrence. If all or part of the penalty is tax-deductible (yes, tax-deductible fines have happened before to directly reduce a company's taxes), then that would weaken the deterrence effectiveness. And, if all or part of the fine is tax-deductible, then we taxpayers just paid for part of Facebook's alleged wrongdoing. I'll bet most taxpayers wouldn't want that.

Facebook stated in a July 24th news release that its second-quarter 2019 earnings included:

"... an additional $2.0 billion legal expense related to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement and a $1.1 billion income tax expense due to the developments in Altera Corp. v. Commissioner, as discussed below. As the FTC expense is not expected to be tax-deductible, it had no effect on our provision for income taxes... In July 2019, we entered into a settlement and modified consent order to resolve the inquiry of the FTC into our platform and user data practices. Among other matters, our settlement with the FTC requires us to pay a penalty of $5.0 billion and to significantly enhance our practices and processes for privacy compliance and oversight. In particular, we have agreed to implement a comprehensive expansion of our privacy program, including substantial management and board of directors oversight, stringent operational requirements and reporting obligations, and a process to regularly certify our compliance with the privacy program to the FTC. In the second quarter of 2019, we recorded an additional $2.0 billion accrual in connection with our settlement with the FTC, which is included in accrued expenses and other current liabilities on our condensed consolidated balance sheet."

"Not expected to be" is not the same as definitely not. And, business expenses reduce a company's taxable net income.

A copy of the FTC settlement order with Facebook is also available here (Adobe PDF format; 920K bytes). Plus, there is more:

"... the FTC also announced today separate law enforcement actions against data analytics company Cambridge Analytica, its former Chief Executive Officer Alexander Nix, and Aleksandr Kogan, an app developer who worked with the company, alleging they used false and deceptive tactics to harvest personal information from millions of Facebook users. Kogan and Nix have agreed to a settlement with the FTC that will restrict how they conduct any business in the future."

Cambridge Analytica was involved in the massive Facebook data breach in 2018 when persons allegedly posed as academic researchers in order to download Facebook users' profile information they really weren't authorized to access.

What are your opinions? Hopefully, some tax experts will weigh in about the fine.


Equifax To Pay $575 Million To Settle Charges By U.S. Regulators About Massive 2017 Data Breach

U.S. Federal Trade Commission logo Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a proposed settlement agreement with Equifax, a national credit reporting agency, which has agreed to pay $575 million to resolve charges about its massive data breach in 2017. That breach exposed the sensitive personal and financial information of about half of all citizens in the United States. The announcement stated:

"In its complaint, the FTC alleges that Equifax failed to secure the massive amount of personal information stored on its network, leading to a breach that exposed millions of names and dates of birth, Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and other personal information that could lead to identity theft and fraud..."

U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau The global, proposed settlement agreement included the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and 50 U.S. states and territories. The FTC announcement described Equifax's data security failures (emphasis added):

"The FTC alleges that Equifax failed to patch its network after being alerted in March 2017 to a critical security vulnerability affecting its ACIS database, which handles inquiries from consumers about their personal credit data. Even though Equifax’s security team ordered that each of the company’s vulnerable systems be patched within 48 hours after receiving the alert, Equifax did not follow up to ensure the order was carried out... Equifax did not discover that its ACIS database was unpatched until July 2017... A company investigation revealed that multiple hackers were able to exploit the ACIS vulnerability to gain entry to Equifax’s network, where they accessed an unsecured file that included administrative credentials stored in plain text. These credentials allowed the hackers to gain access to vast amounts of consumers’ personally identifiable information... The hackers targeted Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and other sensitive information, mostly from consumers who had purchased products from Equifax such as credit scores, credit monitoring, or identity theft prevention services. For example, hackers stole at least 147 million names and dates of birth, 145.5 million Social Security numbers, and 209,000 payment card numbers and expiration dates. Hackers were able to access a staggering amount of data because Equifax failed to implement basic security measures... the FTC also alleges that Equifax stored network credentials and passwords, as well as Social Security numbers and other sensitive consumer information, in plain text."

A truly staggering amount. The most sensitive personal and financial information, indeed. Terms of the proposed settlement:

"... Equifax will pay $300 million to a fund that will provide affected consumers with credit monitoring services. The fund will also compensate consumers who bought credit or identity monitoring services from Equifax and paid other out-of-pocket expenses as a result of the 2017 data breach. Equifax will add up to $125 million to the fund if the initial payment is not enough to compensate consumers for their losses. In addition, beginning in January 2020, Equifax will provide all U.S. consumers with six free credit reports each year for seven years—in addition to the one free annual credit report that Equifax and the two other nationwide credit reporting agencies currently provide."

The settlement also requires Equifax implement a "comprehensive information security plan," and to pay $175 million to 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as $100 million to the CFPB in civil penalties. The comprehensive information security plan will: a) designate an employee to oversee the program; b) include annual assessment of security risks and safeguards; c) obtain "annual certifications from the Equifax board of directors or relevant subcommittee attesting that the company has complied with the order;" d) monitor the effectiveness of security safeguards implemented; e) ensure service providers that access personal information stored by Equifax also implement adequate safeguards; and f) obtain third-party assessments every two years.

The CFPB also announced the proposed settlement on its website. CFPB Director Kathleen L. Kraninger said:

"Today’s announcement is not the end of our efforts to make sure consumers’ sensitive personal information is safe and secure. The incident at Equifax underscores the evolving cyber security threats confronting both private and government computer systems and actions they must take to shield the personal information of consumers. Too much is at stake for the financial security of the American people to make these protections anything less than a top priority."

Kraninger also encouraged consumers affected by the breach to submit their claims to receive free credit monitoring or cash reimbursements. Equifax Chief Executive Officer Mark W. Begor said:

"This comprehensive settlement is a positive step for U.S. consumers and Equifax as we move forward from the 2017 cybersecurity incident and focus on our transformation investments in technology and security as a leading data, analytics, and technology company. The consumer fund of up to $425 million that we are announcing today reinforces our commitment to putting consumers first and safeguarding their data... We have been committed to resolving this issue for consumers and have the financial capacity to manage the settlement while continuing our $1.25 billion EFX2020 technology and security investment program..."

Also, Equifax has set up a website about the settlement: www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com. However, the site says it won't be fully functional until after it receives the approved court order. So, it seems best for affected consumers to deal directly with the FTC.

And, several questions remain. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) discussed the proposed settlement:

"What victims will qualify for reimbursement? How will victims provide accurate evidence of their efforts and misfortunes? Is this fund only for victims who purchased identity theft services? What is the option for victims who did not have the resources then or now to purchase paid services or avail themselves of free services like those ITRC provides? If all victims filed claims and funds were distributed equally to all 148 million people, each would receive fewer than $3.00 in funds or cost of assistance. This does not accurately reflect the true value of the data that was compromised..."

Yep. More payments by Equifax may be required.

And, the ITRC article includes an important reminder. While the Equifax offer includes a long period of free credit monitoring services -- up to 10 versus the usual 2 years -- the risk to affected consumers never goes away:

"... identity theft has no expiration date. The threat of identity theft does not decrease as more time passes from the date of the breach."

This is why it is critical for companies to deploy the strongest data security measures possible. After data breaches, consumers bear the long-term risks.

Last, the FTC encourages Equifax employees who believe the company fails to comply with the settlement to contact the FTC at [email protected]. Affected consumers should contact the FTC directly at the website below:

F.T.C. instructions for consumers affected by Equifax breach


FTC Urged To Rule On Legality Of 'Secret Surveillance Scores' Used To Vary Prices By Each Online Shopper

Nobody wants to pay too much for a product. If you like online shopping, you may have been charged higher prices than your neighbors. Gizmodo reported:

"... researchers have documented and studied the use of so-called "surveillance scoring," the shadowy, but widely adopted practice of using computer algorithms that, in commerce, result in customers automatically paying different prices for the same product. The term also encompasses tactics used by employers and landlords to deny applicants jobs and housing, respectively, based on suggestions an algorithm spits out. Now experts allege that much of this surveillance scoring behavior is illegal, and they’re are asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate."

"In a 38-page petition filed last week, the Consumer Education Foundation (CEF), a California nonprofit with close ties to the group Consumer Watchdog, asked the FTC to explore whether the use of surveillance scores constitute “unfair or deceptive practices” under the Federal Trade Commission Act..."

The petition is part of a "Represent Consumers" (RC) program.

Many travelers have experienced dynamic pricing, where airlines vary fares based upon market conditions: when demand increases, prices go up; when demand decreases, prices go down. Similarly, when there are many unsold seats (e.g., plenty of excess supply), prices go down. But that dynamic pricing does not vary for each traveler.

Pricing by each person raises concerns of price discrimination. The legal definition of price discrimination in the United States:

"A seller charging competing buyers different prices for the same "commodity" or discriminating in the provision of "allowances" — compensation for advertising and other services — may be violating the Robinson-Patman Act... Price discriminations are generally lawful, particularly if they reflect the different costs of dealing with different buyers or are the result of a seller's attempts to meet a competitor's offering... There are two legal defenses to these types of alleged Robinson-Patman violations: (1) the price difference is justified by different costs in manufacture, sale, or delivery (e.g., volume discounts), or (2) the price concession was given in good faith to meet a competitor's price."

Airlines have wanted to extend dynamic pricing to each person, and "surveillance scores" seem perfectly suited for the task. The RC petition is packed with information which is instructive for consumers to learn about the extent of the business practices. First, the petition described the industry involved:

"Surveillance scoring starts with "analytics companies," the true number of which is unknown... these firms amass thousands or even tens of thousands of demographic and lifestyle data points about consumers, with the help of an estimated 121 data brokers and aggregators... The analytics firms use algorithms to categorize, grade, or assign a numerical value to a consumer based on the consumer’s estimated predicted behavior. That score then dictates how a company will treat a consumer. Consumers deemed to be less valuable are treated poorly, while consumers with better “grades” get preferential treatment..."

Second, the RC petition cited a study which identified 44 different types of proprietary surveillance scores used by industry participants to predict consumer behavior. Some of the score types (emphasis added):

"The Medication Adherence Score, which predicts whether a consumer is likely to follow a medication regimen; The Health Risk Score, which predicts how much a specific patient will cost an insurance company; The Consumer Profitability Score, which predicts which households may be profitable for a company and hence desirable customers; The Job Security Score, which predicts a person’s future income and ability to pay for things; The Churn Score, which predicts whether a consumer is likely to move her business to another company; The Discretionary Spending Index, which scores how much extra cash a particular consumer might be able to spend on non-necessities; The Invitation to Apply Score, which predicts how likely a consumer is to respond to a sales offer; The Charitable Donor Score, which predicts how likely a household is to make significant charitable donations; and The Pregnancy Predictor Score, which predicts the likelihood of someone getting pregnant."

It is important to note that the RC petition does not call for a halt in the collection of personal data about consumers. Rather, it asks the FTC, "to investigate and prohibit the targeting of consumers’ private data against them after it has been collected." Clarity is needed about what is, and is not, legal when consumers' personal data is used against them.

Third, the RC petition also cited published studies about pricing discrimination:

"An early seminal study of price discrimination published by researchers at Northeastern University in 2014 (Northeastern Price Discrimination Study) examined the pricing practices of e-commerce websites. The researchers developed a software-based methodology for measuring price discrimination and tested it with 300 real-world users who shopped on 16 popular e-commerce websites.37 Of ten different general retailers tested in 2014, only one –- Home Depot –- was confirmed to be engaging in price discrimination. Home Depot quoted prices to mobile-device users that were approximately $100 more than those quoted to desktop users.39 The researchers were unable to ascertain why... The Northeastern Price Discrimination Study also found that “human shoppers got worse bargains on a number of websites,”compared to an automated shopping browser that did not have any personal data trail associated with it,42 validating that Home Depot was considering shoppers’ personal data when setting prices online."

So, concerns about price discrimination aren't simply theory. Related to that, the RC petition cited its own research:

"... researchers at Northeastern University developed an online tool to “expose how websites personalize prices.” The Price Discrimination Tool (PDT) is a plug-in extension used on the Google Chrome browser that allows any Internet user to perform searches on five websites to see if the user is being charged a different price based on whatever information the companies have about that particular user. The PDT uses a remote computer server that is anonymous –- it has no personal data profile... The PDT then displays the price results from the human shopper’s search and those obtained by the remote anonymous computer server. Our own testing using the PDT revealed that Home Depot continues to offer different prices to human shoppers. For example, a search on Home Depot’s website for “white paint” reveals price discrimination. Of the 24 search results on the first page, Home Depot quoted us higher prices for six tubs of white paint than it quoted the anonymous computer... Our testing also revealed similar price discrimination on Home Depot’s website for light bulbs, toilet paper, toilet paper holders, caulk guns, halogen floor lamps and screw drivers... We also detected price discrimination on Walmart’s website using the PDT. Our testing revealed price discrimination on Walmart’s website for items such as paper towels, highlighters, pens, paint and toilet paper roll holders."

The RC petition listed examples: the Home Depot site quoted $59.87 for a five-gallon bucket of paint to the anonymous user, and $62.96 for the same product to a researcher. Another example: the site quoted $10.26 for a toilet-paper holder to the anonymous user, and $20.89 for the same product to a researcher -- double the price. Prices differences per person ranged from small to huge.

Besides concerns about price discrimination, the RC petition discussed "discriminatory customer service," and the data analytics firms allegedly involved:

"Zeta Global sells customer value scores that will determine, among other things, the quality of customer service a consumer receives from one of Zeta’s corporate clients. Zeta Global “has a database of more than 700 million people, with an average of over 2,500 pieces of data per person,” from which it creates the scores. The scores are based on data “such as the number of times a customer has dialed a call center and whether that person has browsed a competitor’s website or searched certain keywords in the past few days.” Based on that score, Zeta will recommend to its clients, which include wireless carriers, whether to respond to one customer more quickly than to others.

"Kustomer Inc.: Customer-service platform Kustomer Inc. uses customer value scores to enable retailers and other businesses to treat customer service inquiries differently..."

"Opera Solutions: describes itself as a “a global provider of advanced analytics software solutions that address the persistent problem of scaling Big Data analytics.” Opera Solutions generates customer value scores for its clients (including airlines, retailers and banks)..."

The petition cited examples of "discriminatory customer service," which include denied product returns, or customers shunted to less helpful customer service options. Plus, there are accuracy concerns:

"Considering that credit scores – the existence of which has been public since 1970 – are routinely based on credit reports found to contain errors that harm consumers’ financial standing,31 it is highly likely that Secret Surveillance Scores are based on inaccurate or outdated information. Since the score and the erroneous data upon which it relies are secret, there is no way to correct an error,32 assuming the consumer was aware of it."

Regular readers of this blog are already aware of errors in reports from credit reporting agencies. A copy of the RC petition is also available here (Adobe PDF, 3.2 Mbytes).

What immediately becomes clear while reading the petition is that massive amount of personal data collected about consumers to create several proprietary scores. Consumers have no way of knowing nor challenging the accuracy of the scores when they are used against them. So, not only has an industry risen which profits by acquiring and then selling, trading, analyzing, and/or using consumers' data; there is little to no accountability.

In other words, the playing field is heavily tilted for corporations and against consumers.

This is also a reminder why telecommunications companies fought hard for the repeal of broadband privacy and repeal of net neutrality, both of which the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provided in 2017 under the leadership of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Trump appointee. Repeal of the former consumer protection allows unrestricted collection of consumers' data, plus new revenue streams to sell the data collected to analytics firms, data brokers, and business partners.

Repeal of the second consumer protection allows internet and cable providers to price content using whatever criteria they choose. You see a rudimentary version of this pricing in a business practice called "zero rating." An example: streaming a movie via a provider's internet service counts against a data cap while the same movie viewed through the same provider's cable subscription does not. Yet, the exact same movie is delivered through the exact same cable (or fiber) internet connection.

Smart readers immediately realize that a possible next step includes zero ratings per-person. Streaming a movie might count against your data cap but not for your neighbor. Who would know? Oversight and consumer protections are needed.

What are your opinions of secret surveillance scores?


Walmart To Pay $282 Million To Settle Bribery Charges By Regulators In The United States

Walmart logo The U.S. Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on June 20th a settlement agreement to resolve charges that Walmart violated:

"... the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by failing to operate a sufficient anti-corruption compliance program for more than a decade as the retailer experienced rapid international growth... According to the SEC’s order, Walmart failed to sufficiently investigate or mitigate certain anti-corruption risks and allowed subsidiaries in Brazil, China, India, and Mexico to employ third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the FCPA. The SEC’s order details several instances when Walmart planned to implement proper compliance and training only to put those plans on hold or otherwise allow deficient internal accounting controls to persist even in the face of red flags and corruption allegations."

Walmart agreed to pay more than $144 million to settle the SEC’s charges and about $138 million to resolve parallel criminal charges by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), for a combined total of more than $282 million. The settlements cover activities by the retailer's foreign subsidiaries in Brazil, China, India, and Mexico.

United States Department of Justice logo The DOJ announcement on June 20th stated:

"According to Walmart’s admissions, from 2000 until 2011, certain Walmart personnel responsible for implementing and maintaining the company’s internal accounting controls related to anti-corruption were aware of certain failures involving these controls, including relating to potentially improper payments to government officials in certain Walmart foreign subsidiaries, but nevertheless failed to implement sufficient controls that, among other things, would have ensured: (a) that sufficient anti-corruption-related due diligence was conducted on all third-party intermediaries (TPIs) who interacted with foreign officials; (b) that sufficient anti-corruption-related internal accounting controls concerning payments to TPIs existed; (c) that proof was required that TPIs had performed services before Walmart paid them; (d) that TPIs had written contracts that included anti-corruption clauses; (e) that donations ostensibly made to foreign government agencies were not converted to personal use by foreign officials; and (f) that policies covering gifts, travel and entertainment sufficiently addressed giving things of value to foreign officials and were implemented. Even though senior Walmart personnel responsible for implementing and maintaining the company’s internal accounting controls related to anti-corruption knew of these issues, Walmart did not begin to change its internal accounting controls related to anti-corruption to comply with U.S. criminal laws until 2011... In a number of instances, insufficiencies in Walmart’s anti-corruption-related internal accounting controls in these foreign subsidiaries were reported to senior Walmart employees and executives. The internal control failures allowed the foreign subsidiaries in Mexico, India, Brazil and China to open stores faster than they would have with sufficient internal accounting controls related to anti-corruption. Consequently, Walmart earned additional profits through these subsidiaries by opening some of its stores faster..."

So, to fast-track store openings company executives allegedly made secret payments to "third-party individuals" who passed the money on to specific government officials who approve permits. CBS News reported:

"... the payments to the intermediary were recorded as payments to a construction company, even though there were numerous "red flags" to indicate that the intermediary was actually a government official... The federal agreement does not identify the intermediary, but describes her in some detail: It says she became known inside Walmart Brazil as a "sorceress" or "genie" for her "ability to acquire permits quickly by 'sort(ing) things out like magic.' " The plea agreement also includes a provision barring the Brazilian subsidiary from making public claims or issuing press releases contradicting the facts outlined under the plea agreement."

United States Securities And Exchange Commission logo Walmart is not alone regarding FCPA violations. According to the SEC, several companies agreed to settlement agreements and payments during 2019:

Readers of this blog may remember, Fresenius paid $3.5 million last year to resolve HIPAA violations from 5 small data breaches during 2012. And, last week a whistleblower report discussed Cognizant's content moderation work as a Facebook subcontractor.

Notable companies with SEC settlement agreements and payments during 2018:


CBP Breach Disclosed Images Of Travelers' Faces And Vehicle License Plates. Many Unanswered Questions

United States Customs and Border Patrol logo A security breach at a vendor used by U.S. Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) has disclosed the images of both travelers and vehicles license plates. The Washington Post reported:

"Customs officials said in a statement Monday that the images, which included photos of people’s faces and license plates, had been compromised as part of an attack on a federal subcontractor. CBP makes extensive use of cameras and video recordings at airports and land border crossings, where images of vehicles are captured. Those images are used as part of a growing agency facial-recognition program designed to track the identity of people entering and exiting the United States. Fewer than 100,000 people were impacted, said CBP... Officials said the stolen information did not include other identifying information, and no passport or other travel document photos were compromised..."

Reportedly, CBP learned about the breach on May 31. The newspaper also reported:

"CBP said copies of “license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP” had been transferred to the subcontractor’s company network, violating the agency’s security and privacy rules. The subcontractor’s network was then attacked and breached. No CBP systems were compromised, the agency said."

A reporter posted on Twitter the brief statement by CBP, which was sent to selected news organizations:

"On May 31, 2009, CBP learned that a subcontractor, in violation of CBP policies and without CBP's authorization or knowledge, had transferred copies of license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP to the subcontractor's company network. The subcontractor's network was subsequently compromised by a malicious cyber-attack. No CBP systems were compromised.

Initial information indicates that the subcontractor violated mandatory security and privacy controls outlined in their contract. As of today, none of the image data has been identified on the Dark Web or internet. CBP has alerted Members of Congress and is working closely with other law enforcement agencies and cybersecurity entities, and its own Office of Professional Responsibility to actively investigate the incident. CBP will unwaveringly work with all partners to determine the extent of the breach and the appropriate response. CBP has removed from service all equipment related to the breach and is closely monitoring all CBP work by the contractor..."

Well, that brief statement is a start... a small start. This security breach is very troubling for several reasons.

First, it seems that CBP was unaware of the contractual violation (e.g., downloaded images) until it was informed of the data breach. That suggests an inadequate contractual agreement between the vendor and CBP; or failures by CBP to monitor and enforce its contracts. That also raises more questions:

  • When and which executives at the vendor will be reprimanded for this violation?
  • Why did CBP fail to identify the download violation?
  • What changes are underway to prevent future violations?
  • Why is CBP continuing to use a vendor known to have severely violated its contractual agreement?
  • What other vendors have violated CBP contracts?

Second, CBP refused to disclose the name of the vendor. Why? What would this accomplish? Its statement described the breach as a "malicious cyberattack." That seems to warrant disclosure. Were CBP executives caught unprepared?

Thankfully, reporters at the Washington Post continued investigating:

"... a Microsoft Word document of CBP’s public statement, sent Monday to Washington Post reporters, included the name “Perceptics” in the title: “CBP Perceptics Public Statement.” Perceptics representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment... reporters at The Register, a British technology news site, reported late last month that a large haul of breached data from the firm Perceptics was being offered as a free download on the dark web."

So, we don't know for sure if Perceptics was the CBP vendor. However, the May 23rd article in The Register indicates that Perceptics executives were already aware of the breach. CBP executives should have known about the breach on May 23, too, since the article mentioned both entities. Then, why did the CBP statement say it learned of the breach on May 31st? Something here smells -- arrogance, incompetence, or both.

Third, a check at press time of the CBP website and newsroom failed to find any mentions of the security breach. CBP executives have had since May 31st (or since May 23rd), so why send a statement only to select news organizations? Why not publish that statement on its website, too? Were CBP executives caught unprepared and then rushed a haphazard response? When will the breach investigation report be released?

This is troubling. It suggests either arrogance or unpreparedness. As a taxpayer, my money funds CBP activities. I want to know that my money is being spent effectively.

Fourth, the lack of a detailed breach announcement means many related questions remain unanswered:

  • When will CBP notify affected persons? If the vendor will notify affected persons, then CBP must disclose the vendor's name in advance.
  • What assistance (e.g., free credit monitoring) will CBP provide affected persons?
  • What is the status of the post-breach investigation? It helps to know how attackers broke in so effective fixes can be implemented.
  • What other data elements were accessed/stolen? Metadata (e.g., image date and timestamp, border crossing GPS location, entering or exiting USA, vehicle brand and model, number and ages of any passengers in vehicles, etc.) attached to the images can be just as damaging.
  • Were any data elements encrypted? If not, why not?
  • Can facial images be matched to vehicle plate images, and/or to other data elements? If so, this creates more problems for impacted persons.
  • When will fixes be implemented so this doesn't happen again?
  • Exactly how many persons were affected, and in what states? Local states' breach notification laws may apply.
  • How many of the affected persons are U.S. citizens? If the 100,000 estimate applies to only affected U.S. citizens, then we need to know the true total number of persons impacted by the breach.
  • Does the 100,000 estimate refer to facial images only? If so, then exactly how many vehicle license plate images were disclosed?

The statement of "fewer than 100,000 persons impacted" seems vague. A breach investigation should determine two fairly precise items: the number of facial images accessed/stolen, and the number of license plate images accessed/stolen.

Plus, it seems wise to assume more data was stolen during the breach. Why? Consider this report by The Atlantic:

"I would be cautious about assuming this data breach contains only photo data," said Chad Loder, the CEO of Habitu8, a cybersecurity firm that trains other companies on security awareness. The full scope of the breach may be much larger than what CBP revealed in its original statement, he said. In recent years, CBP has asked travelers for fingerprints, facial data, and, recently, even social-media accounts. "If CBP’s contractor was targeted specifically, it’s unlikely that the attacker would have stopped with just photo data..."

If social media passwords were stolen, then affected persons need to know so they can change online passwords. And, elected officials are also asking questions. The Hill reported:

"House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) announced on Monday that his committee would hold hearings next month to examine the collection of biometric information by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes CBP... Homeland Security Committee ranking member Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), used the breach to criticize DHS’s handling of cybersecurity challenges, saying in a statement to The Hill that "the agency is ill-equipped to handle emerging cyberthreats"... Representative Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity, also called for more answers about the breach, which he said would inform Congress's next steps... Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet, said he thinks the breach merits an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General."

Good suggestion by Senator Schatz. Clearly, there's plenty more news to come. Plenty.


After Pleading Guilty To Continued Pollution And Trying To Hide It, Carnival Corporation Fined An Additional $20 Million Fine

[Editor's note: I'm back from my break. Thanks to readers for your patience. That break included a vacation on a different cruise line sailing from New Zealand to Canada via Polynesia, Tasmania, southern Australia, French Polynesia, and the Hawaiian Islands. So, this news story caught my attention.]

On Monday, Carnival Corporation acknowledged violating its probation terms from a 2016 pollution case. Government prosecutors fined the company an additional $20 million for the continuing violations. The New York Times reported:

"In 2016, Princess Cruise Lines agreed to pay a $40 million penalty for illegally dumping oil-contaminated waste into the sea and acts by employees to try to cover it up. It was the largest criminal penalty ever imposed for intentional vessel pollution... The new violations included discharging plastic into waters in the Bahamas, falsifying records and interfering with court supervision of ships... Vessel pollution is just one of the many human-caused hazards facing ocean life today. Ship traffic and noise can cause the death of sea creatures; marine animals routinely turn up dead with plastic in their stomachs; and rising sea temperatures, stemming from climate change caused by human activity, are destroying the framework of many ocean ecosystems."

Based in Miami, Carnival Corporation operates several cruise lines including Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, P&O Cruises (UK), Cunard, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises (Germany), and Costa Cruises (Italy). It's website states a combined fleet of 102 ships with 19 new ships to be delivered between 2017 and 2022. The company employs about 120,000 people worldwide, and 11.5 million guests sail in its ship each year. In 2018, Carnival Corporation generated after-tax profits of $3.15 billion on revenues of $18.88 billion.

Government regulators focused upon the company after:

"... Princess agreed, in 2016, to plead guilty to felony charges and pay the hefty $40 million penalty. In that case... the Caribbean Princess ship, had used several means, including a device called a magic pipe, to circumvent water-cleaning mechanisms... Officials said that four other Princess ships had also been found to have engaged in illegal practices to discharge waste. The discharged waste included gray water — water that has been contaminated with food particles, grease and fat — and water found in the ship’s bilge, the bottom part of the ship where oil waste from engines can accumulate. A whistleblower employee alerted the authorities and certain engineers ordered a coverup, including directing subordinates to lie, according to prosecutors."

In an announcement on Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) listed in detail the violations by Carnival Corporation and its executives:

"1. Failing to establish a senior corporate officer as a corporate compliance manager with responsibility and sufficient authority for implementing new environmental measures required during probation;
2. Contacting the Coast Guard seeking to re-define the definition of what constitutes a major non-conformity under the ECP without going through the required process and after the government had rejected the proposal and told the company to file a motion with the court if it wanted to pursue the issue;
3. Deliberately falsifying environmental training records aboard two cruise ships; and
4. Deliberately discharging plastic in Bahamian waters from the Carnival Elation and failing to accurately record the illegal discharges. Prosecutors advised the Court that this particular instance was an example of a more widespread problem, identified by the external audits, in failing to segregate plastic and non-food garbage from waste thrown overboard from numerous cruise ships."

The DOJ announcement also listed the terms of the settlement agreement, which requires Carnival Corporation:

"i) Pay a $20 million criminal penalty;
ii) Issue a statement to all employees in which Carnival’s CEO accepts management’s responsibility for the probation violations;
iii) Restructure the company’s corporate compliance efforts, including appointing a new chief Corporate Compliance Officer, creating an Executive Compliance Committee across all cruise lines, adding a new member to the Board of Directors with corporate compliance expertise, and train its Board of Directors;
iv) Pay up to $10 million per day if it does not meet deadlines for submitting and implementing needed changes to its corporate structure;
v) Pay for 15 additional independent audits per year conducted by the third-party auditor and Court Appointed Monitor (on top of approximately 31 ship audits and 6 shore-side audits currently performed annually);
vi) Comply with new reporting requirements, including notifying the government and court of all future violations, and specifically identifying foreign violations and the country impacted; and
vii) Make major changes in how the company uses and disposes of plastic and other non-food waste to urgently address a problem on multiple vessels concerning illegal discharges of plastic mixed with other garbage."

Plus, Princess Cruise Line will remain on probation for three more years. The third-party auditor suggests that the court doesn't trust the company and its executives to accurately report progress and corrective actions toward the deadlines. That's good given the light fines (as a percentage of the company's profits).

Cruise customers have already shared their views. According to the Cruise Critic website:

"... SO DISAPPOINTED IN Carnival/Princess... NOT acceptable!!! I just went on a 12 day cruise on the Star Princess last month. I feel betrayed reading this. I had such a great time too. To intentionally break pollution laws means no integrity and shoddy business practice. I want to slap someone."
-- Marykay8

" Well now we know why they have increased some pricing, including some drink packages by 40%. Got to get more from the passengers to pay their fine. The customer always pays more in these scenarios."
-- KYwildcatfanone

"Let's hope this will finally get Carnival Corp. to ensure all of its ships adhere to environmental regulations. But in the big scheme of things, $20 million is just a minuscule amount on a company that had $3.2 billion in net income."
-- GeoHerb

More discussion by customers is available here. Clearly, cruise customers want the pollution stopped, executives held accountable, and the company to change its behavior.

A search of both the Carnival Corporation and Princess Cruises websites at press time failed to find any press releases or mention of the latest fine. The Miami Herald published a brief statement by Arnold Donald, the company's Chief Executive Officer, who appeared in court:

"Donald spoke on behalf of Carnival Corp. "I sincerely regret this case," he said. "In my role as CEO I do take responsibility for the problems we have. I am extremely disappointed that we’ve had them. I know you have reservations about our commitment and who we are. I want you to know we are fully committed." Donald was the only executive who spoke at the hearing."

Fully committed? The proof will be in the company's future actions -- not words -- to fully, consistently, and faithfully comply with the latest settlement agreement and clean up its pollution mess. Will it? What action will the board of directors take? Which executives will be disciplined? Which senior executives will resign? Will more whistle blowers come forward? Lots more news to come.


Federal Reserve Enforcement Action Against Banking Executives

Last month, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) announced several notable enforcement actions. A February 5th press release discussed a:

"Consent Notice of Suspension and Prohibition against Fred Daibes, former Chairman of Mariner's Bancorp, Edgewater, New Jersey, for perpetuating a fraudulent loan scheme, according to a federal indictment."

The order against Daibes described the violations:

"... on October 30, 2018, a federal grand jury in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey charged [Diabes] and an accomplice by indictment with one count conspiracy to misapply bank funds and to make false entries to deceive a financial institution and the FDIC, five counts of misapplying bank funds, six counts of making false entries to decide a financial institution and the FDIC, and one count of causing reliance on a false document to influence the FDIC... During the relevant time period, Mariner’s was subject to federal banking regulations that placed limits on the amount of money that the Bank could lend to a single borrower... the Indictment charges that in about January 2008 to December 2013, Daibes and others orchestrated a nominee loan scheme designed to circumvent the Lending Limits by ensuring that millions of dollars in loans made by the Bank (the “Nominee Loans”) flowed from the nominees to Daibes, while concealing Daibes’ beneficial interests in those loans from both the Bank and the FDIC. Daibes recruited nominees to make materially false and misleading statements and material omissions..."

The FRB and the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) are two of several federal agencies which oversee and regulate the banking industry within the United States. The order bars Daibes from working within the banking industry.

Then, a February 7th FRB press release discussed a:

"Consent Prohibition against Alison Keefe, former employee of SunTrust Bank, Atlanta, Georgia, for violating bank overdraft policies for her own benefit."

The order against Keefe described the violations:

"... between September 2017 and May 2018, while employed as the manager of the Bank’s Hilltop Branch in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Keefe repeatedly overdrew her personal checking account at the Bank and instructed Bank staff, without authorization and contrary to Bank policies, to honor the overdrafts... Keefe’s misconduct described above constituted unsafe or unsound banking practices and demonstrated a reckless disregard for the safety and soundness of the Bank..."

Keefe was fired by the bank on July 12, 2018, and has repaid the bank. The order bars Keefe from working within the banking industry.

A February 21st press release discussed the agency's enforcement action against a former manager at J.P. Morgan Chase bank. The FRB:

"... permanently barred from the banking industry Timothy Fletcher, a former managing director at a non-bank subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Fletcher consented to the prohibition, which includes allegations that he improperly administered a referral hiring program at the firm by offering internships and other employment opportunities to individuals referred by foreign officials, clients, and prospective clients in order to obtain improper business advantages for the firm. The FRB is also requiring Fletcher to cooperate in any pending or prospective enforcement action against other individuals who are or were affiliated with the firm. The firm was previously fined $61.9 million by the Board relating to this program. In addition, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission have also fined the firm."

The $61.9 million fine was levied against J.P. Morgan Chase in November, 2016. Back then, the FRB found that the bank:

"... did not have adequate enterprise-wide controls to ensure that referred candidates were appropriately vetted and hired in accordance with applicable anti-bribery laws and firm policies. The Federal Reserve's order requires J.P. Morgan Chase to enhance the effectiveness of senior management oversight and controls relating to the firm's referral hiring practices and anti-bribery policies. The Federal Reserve is also requiring the firm to cooperate in its investigation of the individuals..."

Last month's order against Fletcher described the violations:

"... from at least 2008 until 2013 [Fletcher] engaged in unsafe and unsound practices, breaches of fiduciary duty, and violations of law related to his involvement in the Firm’s referral hiring program for the Asia-Pacific region investment bank, whereby candidates who were referred, directly or indirectly, by foreign government officials and existing or prospective commercial clients were offered internships, training, and other employment opportunities in order to obtain improper business advantages for the Firm... the Firm’s internal policies prohibited Firm employees from giving anything of value, including the offer of internships or training, to certain individuals, including relatives of public officials and relatives and associates of non-government corporate representatives, in order to obtain improper business advantages for the Firm..."

Kudos to the FRB for its enforcement action. Executives must suffer direct consequences for wrongdoing. After reading this, one wonders why direct consequences are not applied against executives within the social media industry. The behaviors there do just as much damage; and cross borders, too. What are your opinions?


Brave Alerts FTC On Threats From Business Practices With Big Data

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held a "Privacy, Big Data, And Competition" hearing on November 6-8, 2018 as part of its "Competition And Consumer Protection in the 21st Century" series of discussions. During that session, the FTC asked for input on several topics:

  1. "What is “big data”? Is there an important technical or policy distinction to be drawn between data and big data?
  2. How have developments involving data – data resources, analytic tools, technology, and business models – changed the understanding and use of personal or commercial information or sensitive data?
  3. Does the importance of data – or large, complex data sets comprising personal or commercial information – in a firm’s ordinary course operations change how the FTC should analyze mergers or firm conduct? If so, how? Does data differ in importance from other assets in assessing firm or industry conduct?
  4. What structural, behavioral or conduct remedies should the FTC consider when remedying antitrust harm in a market or industry where data or personal or commercial information are a significant product or a key competitive input?
  5. Are there policy recommendations that would facilitate competition in markets involving data or personal or commercial information that the FTC should consider?
  6. Do the presence of personal information or privacy concerns inform or change competition analysis?
  7. How do state, federal, and international privacy laws and regulations, adopted to protect data and consumers, affect competition, innovation, and product offerings in the United States and abroad?"

Brave, the developer of a web browser, submitted comments to the FTC which highlighted two concerns:

"First, big tech companies “cross-use” user data from one part of their business to prop up others. This stifles competition, and hurts innovation and consumer choice. Brave suggests that FTC should investigate. Second, the GDPR is emerging as a de facto international standard. Whether this helps or harms United States firms will be determined by whether the United States enacts and actively enforces robust federal privacy laws."

A letter by Dr. Johnny Ryan, the Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave, described in detail the company's concerns:

"The cross-use and offensive leveraging of personal information from one line of business to another is likely to have anti-competitive effects. Indeed anti-competitive practices may be inevitable when companies with Google’s degree of market dominance update their privacy policies to include the cross-use of personal information. The result is that a company can leverage all the personal information accumulated from its users in one line of business to dominate other lines of business too. Rather than competing on the merits, the company can enjoy the unfair advantage of massive network effects... The result is that nascent and potential competitors will be stifled, and consumer choice will be limited... The cross-use of data between different lines of business is analogous to the tying of two products. Indeed, tying and cross-use of data can occur at the same time, as Google Chrome’s latest “auto sign in to everything” controversy illustrates..."

Historically, Google let Chrome web browser users decide whether or not to sign in for cross-device usage. The Chrome 69 update forced auto sign-in, but a Chrome 70 update restored users' choice after numerous complaints and criticism.

Regarding topic #7 by the FTC, Brave's response said:

"A de facto international standard appears to be emerging, based on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)... the application of GDPR-like laws for commercial use of consumers’ personal data in the EU, Britain (post EU), Japan, India, Brazil, South Korea, Malaysia, Argentina, and China bring more than half of global GDP under a common standard. Whether this emerging standard helps or harms United States firms will be determined by whether the United States enacts and actively enforces robust federal privacy laws. Unless there is a federal GDPR-like law in the United States, there may be a degree of friction and the potential of isolation for United States companies... there is an opportunity in this trend. The United States can assume the global lead by adopting the emerging GDPR standard, and by investing in world-leading regulation that pursues test cases, and defines practical standards..."

Currently, companies collect, archive, share, and sell consumers' personal information at will -- often without notice nor consent. While all 50 states and territories have breach notification laws, most states have not upgraded their breach notification laws to include biometric and passport data. While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the federal law which governs healthcare data and related breaches, many consumers share health data with social media sites -- robbing themselves of HIPAA protections.

Moreover, it's an unregulated free-for-all of data collection, archiving, and sharing by telecommunications companies after the revoking in 2017 of broadband privacy protections for consumers in the USA. Plus, laws have historically focused upon "declared data" (e.g., the data users upload or submit into websites or apps) while ignoring "inferred data" -- which is arguably just as sensitive and revealing.

Regarding future federal privacy legislation, Brave added:

"... The GDPR is compatible with a United States view of consumer protection and privacy principles. Indeed, the FTC has proposed important privacy protections to legislators in 2009, and again in 2012 and 2014, which ended up being incorporated in the GDPR. The high-level principles of the GDPR are closely aligned, and often identical to, the United States’ privacy principles... The GDPR also incorporates principles endorsed by the U.S. in the 1980 OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data; and the principles endorsed by the United States this year, in Article 19.8 (3) of the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement."

"The GDPR differs from established United States privacy principles in its explicit reference to “proportionality” as a precondition of data use, and in its more robust approach to data minimization and to purpose specification. In our view, a federal law should incorporate these elements too. We also recommend that federal law should adopt the GDPR definitions of concepts such as “personal data”, “legal basis” including opt-in “consent”, “processing”, “special category personal data”, ”profiling”, “data controller”, “automated decision making”, “purpose limitation”, and so forth, and tools such as data protection impact assessments, breach notification, and records of processing activities."

"In keeping with the fair information practice principles (FIPPs) of the 1974 US Privacy Act, Brave recommends that a federal law should require that the collection of personal information is subject to purpose specification. This means that personal information shall only be collected for specific and explicit purposes. Personal information should not used beyond those purposes without consent, unless a further purpose is poses no risk of harm and is compatible with the initial purpose, in which case the data subject should have the opportunity to opt-out."

Submissions by Brave and others are available to the public at the FTC website in the "Public Comments" section.


Survey: People In Relationships Spy On Cheating Partners. FTC: Singles Looking For Love Are The Biggest Target Of Scammers

Happy Valentine's Day! First, BestVPN announced the results of a survey of 1,000 adults globally about relationships and trust in today's digital age where social media usage is very popular. Key findings:

"... nearly 30% of respondents admitted to using tracking apps to catch a partner [suspected of or cheating]. After all, over a quarter of those caught cheating were busted by modern technology... 85% of those caught out in the past now take additional steps to protect their privacy, including deleting their browsing data or using a private browsing mode."

Below is an infographic with more findings from the survey.

Valentines-day-infograph-bestvpn-feb2019

Second, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning earlier this week about fraud affecting single persons:

"... romance scams generated more reported losses than any other consumer fraud type reported to the agency... The number of romance scams reported to the FTC has grown from 8,500 in 2015 to more than 21,000 in 2018, while reported losses to these scams more than quadrupled in recent years—from $33 million in 2015 to $143 million last year. For those who said they lost money to a romance scam, the median reported loss was $2,600, with those 70 and over reporting the biggest median losses at $10,000."

"Romance scammers often find their victims online through a dating site or app or via social media. These scammers create phony profiles that often involve the use of a stranger’s photo they have found online. The goals of these scams are often the same: to gain the victim’s trust and love in order to get them to send money through a wire transfer, gift card, or other means."

So, be careful out there. Don't cheat, and beware of scammers and dating imposters. You have been warned.


Senators Demand Answers From Facebook And Google About Project Atlas And Screenwise Meter Programs

After news reports surfaced about Facebook's Project Atlas, a secret program where Facebook paid teenagers (and other users) for a research app installed on their phones to track and collect information about their mobile usage, several United States Senators have demanded explanations. Three Senators sent a join letter on February 7, 2019 to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive officer.

The joint letter to Facebook (Adobe PDF format) stated, in part:

"We write concerned about reports that Facebook is collecting highly-sensitive data on teenagers, including their web browsing, phone use, communications, and locations -- all to profile their behavior without adequate disclosure, consent, or oversight. These reports fit with Longstanding concerns that Facebook has used its products to deeply intrude into personal privacy... According to a journalist who attempted to register as a teen, the linked registration page failed to impose meaningful checks on parental consent. Facebook has more rigorous mechanism to obtain and verify parental consent, such as when it is required to sign up for Messenger Kids... Facebook's monitoring under Project Atlas is particularly concerning because the data data collection performed by the research app was deeply invasive. Facebook's registration process encouraged participants to "set it and forget it," warning that if a participant disconnected from the monitoring for more than ten minutes for a few days, that they could be disqualified. Behind the scenes, the app watched everything on the phone."

The letter included another example highlighting the alleged lack of meaningful disclosures:

"... the app added a VPN connection that would automatically route all of a participant's traffic through Facebook's servers. The app installed a SSL root certificate on the participant's phone, which would allow Facebook to intercept or modify data sent to encrypted websites. As a result, Facebook would have limitless access to monitor normally secure web traffic, even allowing Facebook to watch an individual log into their bank account or exchange pictures with their family. None of the disclosures provided at registration offer a meaningful explanation about how the sensitive data is used, how long it is kept, or who within Facebook has access to it..."

The letter was signed by Senators Richard Blumenthal (Democrat, Connecticut), Edward J. Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts), and Josh Hawley (Republican, Mississippi). Based upon news reports about how Facebook's Research App operated with similar functionality to the Onavo VPN app which was banned last year by Apple, the Senators concluded:

"Faced with that ban, Facebook appears to have circumvented Apple's attempts to protect consumers."

The joint letter also listed twelve questions the Senators want detailed answers about. Below are selected questions from that list:

"1. When did Project Atlas begin and how many individuals participated? How many participants were under age 18?"

"3. Why did Facebook use a less strict mechanism for verifying parental consent than is Required for Messenger Kids or Global Data Protection Requlation (GDPR) compliance?"

"4.What specific types of data was collected (e.g., device identifieers, usage of specific applications, content of messages, friends lists, locations, et al.)?"

"5. Did Facebook use the root certificate installed on a participant's device by the Project Atlas app to decrypt and inspect encrypted web traffic? Did this monitoring include analysis or retention of application-layer content?"

"7. Were app usage data or communications content collected by Project Atlas ever reviewed by or available to Facebook personnel or employees of Facebook partners?"

8." Given that Project Atlas acknowledged the collection of "data about [users'] activities and content within those apps," did Facebook ever collect or retain the private messages, photos, or other communications sent or received over non-Facebook products?"

"11. Why did Facebook bypass Apple's app review? Has Facebook bypassed the App Store aproval processing using enterprise certificates for any other app that was used for non-internal purposes? If so, please list and describe those apps."

Read the entire letter to Facebook (Adobe PDF format). Also on February 7th, the Senators sent a similar letter to Google (Adobe PDF format), addressed to Hiroshi Lockheimer, the Senior Vice President of Platforms & Ecosystems. It stated in part:

"TechCrunch has subsequently reported that Google maintained its own measurement program called "Screenwise Meter," which raises similar concerns as Project Atlas. The Screenwise Meter app also bypassed the App Store using an enterprise certificate and installed a VPN service in order to monitor phones... While Google has since removed the app, questions remain about why it had gone outside Apple's review process to run the monitoring program. Platforms must maintain and consistently enforce clear policies on the monitoring of teens and what constitutes meaningful parental consent..."

The letter to Google includes a similar list of eight questions the Senators seek detailed answers about. Some notable questions:

"5. Why did Google bypass App Store approval for Screenwise Meter app using enterprise certificates? Has Google bypassed the App Store approval processing using enterprise certificates for any other non-internal app? If so, please list and describe those apps."

"6. What measures did Google have in place to ensure that teenage participants in Screenwise Meter had authentic parental consent?"

"7. Given that Apple removed Onavoo protect from the App Store for violating its terms of service regarding privacy, why has Google continued to allow the Onavo Protect app to be available on the Play Store?"

The lawmakers have asked for responses by March 1st. Thanks to all three Senators for protecting consumers' -- and children's -- privacy... and for enforcing transparency and accountability.


Technology And Human Rights Organizations Sent Joint Letter Urging House Representatives Not To Fund 'Invasive Surveillance' Tech Instead of A Border Wall

More than two dozen technology and human rights organizations sent a joint letter Tuesday to representatives in the House of Representatives, urging them not to fund "invasive surveillance technologies" in replacement of a physical wall or barrier along the southern border of the United States. The joint letter cited five concerns:

"1. Risk-based targeting: The proposal calls for “an expansion of risk-based targeting of passengers and cargo entering the United States.” We are concerned that this includes the expansion of programs — proven to be ineffective and to exacerbate racial profiling — that use mathematical analytics to make targeting determinations. All too often, these systems replicate the biases of their programmers, burden vulnerable communities, lack democratic transparency, and encourage the collection and analysis of ever-increasing amounts of data... 3. Biometrics: The proposal calls for “new cutting edge technology” at the border. If that includes new face surveillance like that deployed at international airline departures, it should not. Senator Jeff Merkley and the Congressional Black Caucus have expressed serious concern that facial recognition technology would place “disproportionate burdens on communities of color and could stifle Americans’ willingness to exercise their first amendment rights in public.” In addition, use of other biometrics, including iris scans and voice recognition, also raise significant privacy concerns... 5. Biometric and DNA data: We oppose biometric screening at the border and the collection of immigrants’ DNA, and fear this may be another form of “new cutting edge technology” under consideration. We are concerned about the threat that any collected biometric data will be stolen or misused, as well as the potential for such programs to be expanded far beyond their original scope..."

The letter was sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Minority Whip Steve Scalise, Chair Nita Lowey a Ranking Member of House Appropriations, and Kay Granger of the House Appropriations committee.

27 organizations signed the joint letter, including Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Center for Media Justice, the Project On Government Oversight, and others. Read the entire letter.

Earlier this month, a structural and civil engineer cited several reasons why a physical wall won't work and would be vastly more expensive than the $5.7 billion requested.

Clearly, the are distinct advantages and disadvantages for each and all border-protection solutions the House and President are considering. It is a complex problem. These advantages and disadvantages of all proposals need to be clear, transparent, and understood by taxpayers prior to any final decisions.


The Federal Reserve Introduced A New Publication For And About Consumers

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has introduced a new publication titled, "Consumer & Community Context." According to the FRB announcement, the new publication will feature:

"... original analyses about the financial conditions and experiences of consumers and communities, including traditionally under-served and economically vulnerable households and neighborhoods. The goal of the series is to increase public understanding of the financial conditions and concerns of consumers and communities... The inaugural issue covers the theme of student loans, and includes articles on the effect that rising student loan debt levels may have on home ownership rates among young adults; and the relationship between the amount of student loan debt and individuals' decisions to live in rural or urban areas."

Authors are employees of the FRB or the Federal Reserve System (FRS). As the central bank of the United States, the FRS performs five general functions to "promote the effective operation of the U.S. economy and, more generally, the public interest:" i) conducts the nation’s monetary policy to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates; ii) promotes the stability of the financial system and seeks to minimize and contain systemic risks; iii) promotes the safety and soundness of individual financial institutions; iv) fosters payment and settlement system safety and efficiency through services to the banking industry; and v) promotes consumer protection and community development through consumer-focused supervision, examination, and monitoring of the financial system. Learn more about the Federal Reserve.

The first issue of Consumer & Community Context is available, in Adobe PDF format, at the FRB site. Economists, bank executives, consumer advocates, researchers, teachers, and policy makers may be particularly interested. To better understand the publication's content, below is an excerpt.

In their analysis of student loan debt and home ownership among young adults, the researchers found:

"... home ownership rate in the United States fell approximately 4 percentage points in the wake of the financial crisis, from a peak of 69 percent in 2005 to 65 percent in 2014. The decline in home ownership was even more pronounced among young adults. Whereas 45 percent of household heads ages 24 to 32 in 2005 owned their own home, just 36 percent did in 2014 — a marked 9 percentage point drop... We found that a $1,000 increase in student loan debt (accumulated during the prime college-going years and measured in 2014 dollars) causes a 1 to 2 percentage point drop in the home ownership rate for student loan borrowers during their late 20s and early 30s... higher student loan debt early in life leads to a lower credit score later in life, all else equal. We also find that, all else equal, increased student loan debt causes borrowers to be more likely to default on their student loan debt, which has a major adverse effect on their credit scores, thereby impacting their ability to qualify for a mortgage..."

The FRB announcement described the publication schedule as, "periodically." Perhaps, this is due to the partial government shutdown. Hopefully, in the near future the FRB will commit to a more regular publication schedule.


Report: Navient Tops List Of Student Loan Complaints

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal government agency in the United States, collects complaints about banks and other financial institutions. That includes lenders of student loans.

The CFPB and private-sector firms analyze these complaints, looking for patterns. Forbes magazine reported:

"The team at Make Lemonade analyzed these complaints [submitted during 2018], and found that there were 8,752 related to student loans. About 64% were related to federal student loans and 36% were related to private student loans. Nearly 67% of complaints were related to an issue with a student loan lender or student loan servicer."

"Navient, one of the nation's largest student loan servicers, ranked highest in terms of student loan complaints. In 2018, student loan borrowers submitted 4,032 complaints about Navient to the CFPB, which represents 46% of all student loan complaints. AES/PHEAA and Nelnet, two other major student loan servicers, received approximately 20% and 7%, respectively."

When looking for a student loan, wise consumers shop around, do their research, and shop wisely. Some lenders are better than others. The Forbes article is very helpful as it contains links to additional resources and information for consumers.

Learn more about the CFPB and its complaints database designed to help consumers and regulators: