The Federal Trade Commission has joined the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in filing a memorandum brief in support of the constitutionality of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (S), the law designed to protect the privacy of credit report information and ensure that the information supplied by consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) is as accurate as possible. In the filing, the CRAs urge a federal district court to uphold an important provision of the FCRA, which has protected consumers’ privacy for more than 40 years. The provision in question bars CRAs from disclosing individuals’ arrest records or other adverse information that is more than seven years old. The brief refutes GIS’s argument that this FCRA protection is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech and concludes that the court should not invalidate the FCRA provision, as it “directly advances the government’s substantial interest in protecting individuals’ privacy,” while also accommodating the interest of businesses.
