CFPB sharing complaint data with cities and counties

A recent CFPB Blog article, "Using CFPB complaint data to help cities and counties protect the public," reveals that the Bureau has been onboarding selected cities and counties to the CFPB's Government Portal to the Bureau's Consumer Complaint Database, which gives local, state, and federal government agencies access to more granular information than afforded via the public-facing portal to the database. Cities and counties are required to sign a confidentiality and data access agreement with strong personal data protection requirements.

The onboarded cities and counties can:

• See in real-time what consumers are experiencing in the financial marketplace and how companies are responding
• Download complaints—including consumer- and company-provided documents—to investigate and enforce rules protecting consumers
• Compare problems their constituents are facing to other localities and nationwide
• Filter and export information to ensure targeted analysis by time period, company, geography, and more
• Securely refer individual complaints to the CFPB
• Receive the list of companies responding to complaints through CFPB’s process (last year, more than 3,400 companies responded to consumer complaints)

In under three months, more than a dozen cities and counties have expressed interest in accessing the Government Portal and there are already ten participating jurisdictions.