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Comment by coderintherye | Hacker News Reader

One thing Matt mentions but doesn't go into is how this could (should?) be a government service. In fact, there is the IRS's IVES program: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/inco... but it is already fairly antiquated.

There's a great opportunity here for the IRS to provide this service (with revenue from charging the requesting entities), with citizens being self-sovereign over what data is shared and who it is shared with. Especially because they could provide verified data in a very narrow scope (for instance only sharing Adjusted Gross Income and nothing else).

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Equifax collects data that isn't true and libels its victims by disseminating it to other parties. Having that power enshrined within the government would not be a good thing.

Only when you give said company authorization to review your credit worthiness, then they may attempt to pull your credit information.

Your information is not broadcasted to all companies in existence only those who you've authorized (or have been authorized on your behalf by a malicious actor / identify thief).

This is not udp.

Your first paragraph is true (to the extent that nobody pretends to have your authorization).

Your second paragraph is false, AFAIK. In the USA, credit bureaus are legally allowed to sell lots of your info to debt collectors and financial service companies. (According to DoanLaw.com) this is why you get “prescreening” offers for credit cards, mortgage refis, etc.

I don't disagree that the companies are selling your contact information and most likely some fuzzy information ranges (age, gender, martial status, rent/own, income) that's all that's really needed to snail mail "pre approvals" hint you're not really approved for anything until you sign to allow them to actually pull your credit. Preapproved just means you meet the minimum threshold of potentially making them more money than the cost of a 50 cent envelope/paper/bulk mailing rate.

Outside of state laws and HIPAA, what national laws in the United States limit information sharing from a private party?

Video rental records is it. Everything else is up for sale.

I believe there are a number of siloed categories:

- HIPPA is for health care providers and their vendors

- Traditional wired telecom has long been protected. And fraud over telecom has a special wire fraud statute.

- Mail thru the USPS

- COPPA for PII of under 13 data

- Federal election law prevents election records used for commercial purposes

- basically all of the government classified data system

- FERPA for data held by colleges/unis.

Agree that most of the data needed for a generic prescreening is available from lots of data brokerage (doesn’t necessarily need a credit bureau), but that DoanLaw.com article I read to verify my memory states that credit bureaus may legally sell some data points that can only accurately be sourced from a credit bureau.

Would you mind sharing the article? I'd like to read more about which specific data points. Thanks!

https://doanlaw.com/false-credit-reporting/personal-financia...

> Your information is not broadcasted to all companies in existence only those who you've authorized

Famously, Experian ("freecreditreport.com") sold partially filled form information. This is before submission and up to 9 times. Feel free to go to the site signup today and watch the information being streamed (in a hashed form) from your developer console.

This seems a great opportunity. Fill in false information, don't submit it, and watch your credit score raise?

Filling out a form has no bearing on your credit score. This mechanism is leveraged to monetize someone's information independent of that person's credit score or the accuracy of the information.

Why?

Government answers to it's people.

Equifax answers to it's shareholders.

IRS already has that info. The people have the power to control and influence how that data is handled, and distributed. We have no power to compel Equifax to do anything.

Government is able to compel Equifax to do things, and is run by we, the people, so it seems like we should be able to something, for sufficiently large and powerful numbers of "we".

Ah but you see, you're not friends with a senator.

The government already has the power to do those things. The track record of credit reporting agencies shows it's almost impossible to hold them accountable, so what's the advantage to having these private entities profiting off of us again?

That's a pretty disengenous argument.

I think you understand that the point of taking this course of action is to prevent/reduce these kinds of abuses from happening.

The goal isn't to enshrine abuse of authority in governmental agencies, but to prevent nongovernmental agencies from abusing that authority.

>The goal isn't to enshrine abuse of authority in governmental agencies, but to prevent nongovernmental agencies from abusing that authority.

I would much rather just whack the big players with antitrust law than give their power to some government agency. A worthless mission statement of some bureaucracy is just that, worthless. If said bureaucracy is using the same information Equifax is using to provide the same services the abuse potential is right there and it's probably only a matter of time until it starts getting used to screw whoever the outgroup of the minute is.

Antitrust law isn't a solution here. Many different surveillance companies keeping records on us creates the same problems (if not more) as a few companies. The fundamental problem is that we have no ability to choose which of these companies we want to associate with.

What is sorely needed is privacy legislation that says that data about an individual is fundamentally the property of that individual, and that the license for commercially storing/processing an individual's data can be revoked at any time. Having choices is the requisite first step to having competition.

I don't see why a market based solution is needed here.

What will having a market of providers for this service do for me that having a crown corporation or federal ministry won't?

Let's look at it the other way. Could you imagine privatizing the IRS. Why would I want that?

I could see the IRS offering some service to enter the market and compete with Equifax to bring more competition to the sector. They might have to compel Equifax to give up some data or data sources to the government and their competitors. The government did this in WW2, forcing companies to give trade secrets to their competitors so there would be a more resilient supply chain.

Something similar could be done to break up big banking if the US Postal Service allowed people to open up super simple checking and savings accounts.

This is a good idea, but I’m skeptical if the IRS has enough funding and resources to manage another service. They barely have enough funding for the current backlog of filed tax returns.

The IRS can't even provide a simple reliable service to verify a TIN; they're not getting into the IVE game.

Or rather than further entrenching the idea, we could work towards effective privacy legislation and relegate all of these commercial surveillance databases to the dustbin of history.

There is no free lunch. Limiting credit checks to AGI just means everyone will assumed to have an unknown credit history and will have much higher rates.

You ready to get a mortgage at prime plus 5% instead of prime plus 1%?

But let me guess, we could create a law about that?

Having the government do things doesn’t magically mean market forces don’t apply any more.

The point is not about limiting it to AGI, the point is setting limits on what data is shared so that you as the consumer always control what a requesting company sees. Don't want your data shared? No problem, you can set to deny all requests. Only want to share AGI but not your entire return, just allow that field, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your response also seems to indicate you don't work in financial services. No company is providing credit based solely on income verification (well, not that I'm aware of maybe some fintech is doing it). Most all credit providers are collating data from various sources to make their decision and it varies more than you might think on what goes into a credit decision.

Further, I don't think there's any need at all for laws for this as you suggest, rather just let the IRS offer it as a competing service with private industry. I know many companies that would sign up right away for such a service at the right price point.

People don't understand how credit scores work and you want to give them the power to allow granular permissions?

Just like Facebook gave people granular access to their privacy settings?

If the general population doesn't read EULAs and speed clicks through 99% of dialogs presented. I highly doubt people won't check the _allow all_ box once and be done with it.

Hell Apple gives my significant other the ability to ask apps not to track and they tap to ALLOW the app to track because "I don't mind ads and they'll show me better ads."

Some percentage of people making bad decisions doesn’t mean all people should be forced to make bad decisions. Yes, it’s a good thing that Facebook and apple allow those controls. Yes, it’s a shame more people don’t care about controlling their data. That doesn’t mean people who do care shouldn’t be able to control it.

What point are you trying to make, exactly?

I believe their point is that if you don't provide any piece of information, the consumer of it would just assume the worst. Or, they would average it out, so that the burden of not being accurate would affect the people that do provide it.

> You ready to get a mortgage at prime plus 5% instead of prime plus 1%?

So then homes would become more affordable, as monthly payments are the limiting factor? Sounds like a win-win, if that actually were to happen. But it seems unlikely for secured credit.

No, why would homes be more affordable? Credit would tighten up immensely starting with those who don’t have sufficient income.

The main limit for people buying houses is the monthly payment. When interest rates go down, abstract asset prices go up to compensate. When interest rates go up, abstract asset prices go down. So your scenario of interest rates going up would actually make housing more affordable. Lower asset prices encourage things like making a larger downpayment (rather than suffering PMI), and making it reasonable to pay off a mortgage early.

But as I said, the change in interest rates is unlikely to be that large for secured credit like a mortgage, as the main thing guaranteeing the loan is the asset itself.

> You ready to get a mortgage at prime plus 5% instead of prime plus 1%?

And for that I had to pay interest/fees on all the other crap so that I "build a credit history"

Interesting, I wonder if someone did the math on that (and that 5% is overinflated I think not even the NINA loans were that high)

What “interest and fees”?

I have a high credit score and have never paid a fee or any interest.

CC Annuity? Or even the implied CC fees the purchaser pays indirectly by increased prices

Car payment interest? Student loans?

I’ve never had a credit card with fees.

I built up a great credit score with a single, no fee card, that I paid off each month. Total cost $0.

You don’t need an interest paying loan to have a good credit score.

I don't understand the US credit score at all. What's the predictive value of you paying off a mortgage based on you just shopping with a credit card? Sure if you can't pay your normal shopping cart, probably you shouldn't really be getting a mortgage, but the predictive value besides that seems lost on me. Surely a bank could just ask your payslip info and get a more accurate feel whether or not you are creditworthy?

I don’t follow.

Shopping with a credit card literally involves managing a line of credit.

You don’t see how that relates to creditworthiness?

You also believe purely income information is a better indicator of credit worthiness? It tells you almost nothing (which is why income plus all current expenses is used).

A mortgage is about the ability to pay back hundreds of thousands over an extremely long time period. Your normal shopping is a blip, and it makes barely any difference because normal people just use their credit card the same as if it was a debit one (the only difference you pay it off at the end of the month). So it doesn't tell me anything about your ability to handle real credit. What do I care that you pay off a 100-ish bucks a month by buying food? I don't think paying off your shopping cart is very impressive, and someone telling me "I've paid off my shopping carts for over 15 years" (which is what advice US people seem to throw around to use your credit card for) isn't going to impress me, yet this is what a company uses for important stuff? And at least employment status/income tells me something, rather than nothing.

I don't think you understand how the average person handles credit card debt.

Plenty of people fail to pay even monthly credit card debt. That a massive,massive signal to how they'd handle larger amounts of credit.

> Surely a bank could just ask your payslip info and get a more accurate feel whether or not you are creditworthy?

They do that, too. You have to provide all of your income data over the past like 3 years and explain any extra income (why did your parents give you $1000 a couple years ago?). Credit score is just one more datapoint, and I think it's more about your score being "not bad" (i.e. you didn't screw a previous creditor) than it is about it being "good."

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