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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 215 / Wednesday, November 10, 2021 / Rules and Regulations reporting agencies shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates. 7 This requirement remains as important today as it was when the statute was enacted in 1970.
Concerns about the accuracy of information included in consumer reports are long-standing. In 2003, Congress passed the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions FACT Act, which, in addition to expanding the FCRAs substantive consumer protections, required the Federal Trade Commission FTC to conduct an ongoing study of consumer report accuracy and completeness.8 In 2012, the FTC
published a report summarizing results of that study, finding, among other things, that one in five consumers who participated in the study had an error on at least one of their three nationwide credit reports.9 More recently, the Bureau and the FTC hosted a full-day public workshop to discuss issues affecting the accuracy of both traditional credit reports and employment and tenant background screening reports.10
The Bureau is especially concerned about the effects of these accuracy problems in light of the economic and public health impacts of COVID19.
Income shocks resulting from the pandemic, such as a job loss, reduced work hours, or the death or illness of a family member, have contributed to an increase in housing and financial insecurity for many households.11 Lowincome and minority renters have been disproportionately affected by the economic effects of the COVID19
pandemic, including job losses.12 The Bureau is concerned that the risk that
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U.S.C. 1681eb.
8 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, Public Law 108159, sec. 319, 117 Stat. 1952
2003.
9 See Fed. Trade Commn, Report to Congress Under Section 319 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, at 64 Dec. 2012, https
www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/
section-319-fair-and-accurate-credit-transactionsact-2003-fifth-interim-federal-trade-commission/
130211factareport.pdf.
10 Fed. Trade Commn, Accuracy in Consumer Reporting Workshop Dec. 10, 2019, https
www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/
accuracy-consumer-reporting-workshop.
11 See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Housing Insecurity and the COVID19 Pandemic, at 5 Mar.
1, 2021, https files.consumerfinance.gov/f/
documents/cfpb_Housing_insecurity_and_the_
COVID-19_pandemic.pdf.
12 See id. at 8, 18; see also Pew Research Ctr., Economic Fallout From COVID19 Continues To Hit Lower-Income Americans the Hardest Sept. 24, 2020, https www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/
2020/09/24/economic-fallout-from-covid-19continues-to-hit-lower-income-americans-thehardest/.

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inaccurate data will be included in consumer reports may be further heightened by increased volumes of negative information in the consumer reporting system resulting from the pandemic. Inaccurate information in consumer reports can have devastating impacts on consumers, including impairing the ability of renters and jobseekers negatively impacted by the pandemic to secure new rental housing, find employment, and otherwise recover from the pandemics economic effects.
An increase in housing instability and financial distress caused by inaccurate consumer reporting information could undermine the nations efforts to recover from the pandemic.
Consumer complaints received by the Bureau reflect significant consumer concern about inaccuracies in consumer reports. Complaints about incorrect information on your report have represented the largest percentage of consumer complaints received by the Bureau regarding credit or consumer reporting each year for at least the last five years.13 In 2020 alone, companies provided responses to more than 191,000 such complaints, which represents approximately 68 percent of credit or consumer reporting complaints responded to by companies that year.14
Inaccuracies in consumer reports can in part be attributed to errors introduced by consumer reporting agencies during the matching process. When preparing a consumer report, a consumer reporting agency must assign or match information it obtains from a public data source or receives from a furnisher to the specific consumer who is the subject of the report. Each year, the Bureau receives many complaints 13 See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 22 Mar. 2021, https
files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_2020consumer-response-annual-report_03-2021.pdf;
Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 19 Mar. 2020, https
files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_
consumer-response-annual-report_2019.pdf; Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 19 Mar. 2019, https files.consumer finance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_consumer-responseannual-report_2018.pdf; Bureau of Consumer Fin.
Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 13
Mar. 2018, https files.consumerfinance.gov/f/
documents/cfpb_consumer-response-annualreport_2017.pdf; Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 18 Mar.
2017, https files.consumerfinance.gov/f/
documents/201703_cfpb_Consumer-ResponseAnnual-Report-2016.PDF.
14 See Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Response Annual Report, at 22 Mar. 2021, https
files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_2020consumer-response-annual-report_03-2021.pdf for more in-depth analyses. Additionally, consumers with a problem with a credit or consumer report may submit multiple complaints, for example, complaints about data furnishers and complaints about consumer reporting agencies. Id. at 21.

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from consumers arising from errors that likely occurred during the matching process. Some consumers who submit such complaints include narrative descriptions noting, among other things, their frustration at trying to get such errors corrected, as well as the negative consequences of such errors, such as not being able to complete planned purchases of homes or cars.15
One method of matching, name-only matching, is particularly likely to lead to inaccuracies in consumer reports.
Name-only matching occurs when a consumer reporting agency uses only first and last name to determine whether a particular item of information relates to a particular consumer, without using other personally identifying information such as address, date of birth, or Social Security number. Matching errors are particularly common when using nameonly matching because many consumers have the same or similar names. For example, in the United States, the 2010
census the most recent to have last name statistics available found more than 2.4 million respondents with the last name of Smith, 1.9 million respondents with the last name of Johnson, 1.6 million respondents with the last name of Williams, and more than 1 million respondents each with the last name of Brown, Jones, Garcia, Miller, Davis, Rodriguez, Martinez, or Hernandez.16 Given the commonality of many first and last names, it is not unlikely that thousands, or even tens of thousands, of consumers, might share a particular first and last name combination.17
15 See generally Bureau of Consumer Fin. Prot., Consumer Complaint Database, https
www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/
consumer-complaints/ last visited Oct. 21, 2021.
16 U.S. Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census, https
www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/
2010_surnames.html last revised Dec. 27, 2016.
17 For example, one study catalogued a number of first-and-last name combinations such as James Smith that each corresponded to over 30,000
individuals in the United States. See Lee Hartman, Southern Illinois University, John Smith et al.:
Some observations on how the 20 most popular first names combine with the 20 most popular surnames in the United States n.d., https web.archive.org/
web/20190225042148/http:/mypage.siu.edu/
lhartman/johnsmith.html; see also Mona Chalabi &
Andrew Flowers, Dear Mona, Whats The Most Common Name In America? Nov. 20, 2014, https fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-the-mostcommon-name-in-america/ cataloguing common first-and-last name combinations. Indeed, one court, in evaluating an FCRA section 607b claim, noted that there could be as many as 125,000
individuals named David Smith living in the United States. Smith v. LexisNexis Screening Solutions, Inc., 837 F.3d 604, 610 6th Cir. 2016
noting that David Smith is an exceedingly common first-and-last-name combinationto the tune of over 125,000 individuals living in the United States.

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