Disclosure of Consumer Complaint Narrative Data, 80 Fed. Reg. 15,572 (Mar. 24, 2015)

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (the ‘‘Bureau’’) is issuing a final policy statement (‘‘Final Policy Statement’’) to provide guidance on how the Bureau plans to exercise its discretion to disclose publicly unstructured consumer complaint narrative data (‘‘narratives’’ or ‘‘consumer narratives’’) via its web-based, public facing database (the ‘‘Consumer Complaint Database’’ or ‘‘Database’’). Only those narratives for which opt-in consumer consent is obtained and a robust personal information scrubbing standard and methodology applied will be eligible for disclosure. The Final Policy Statement supplements and amends the Bureau’s existing policy statements establishing and expanding the Consumer Complaint Database.[1]

[1] Disclosure of Certain Credit Card Complaint Data, 77 FR 37558 (June 22, 2012) (‘‘2012 Notice of Final Policy Statement’’); Disclosure of Consumer Complaint Data, 78 FR 21218 (Apr. 10, 2013) (‘‘2013 Notice of Final Policy Statement’’).