Privatized credit rating agencies are so outdated and barbaric. Feds should nationalize them into a single public service run without profit.
On the other hand, the 3 credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) work by simply gathering credit information, and using industry standard (and usually shared[0]) scoring models to assign a FICO or Vantage score to individuals, after which the lender can use any of their own classification criteria to deny credit or assign an interest rate.
0: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sI6l_Z5SyJqx4xXwlLYL...
I definitely meant to write "credit reporting" in my original comment, but I never considered how credit rating and credit reporting companies might interact. Glad I made that mistake because I learned something from your comments.
(Technically the Government already backs the entire credit rating agency and their loan ratings, since they gave out billions in bailout money in the 2008 crisis :P)
I’m not sure I 100% trust my government to decide what services I’m eligible for. I’d worry it would merge with the surveillance and police states.
Imagine your cellphone pinging a tower during a protest and losing your ability to open a line of credit.
The companies aren't technically deciding what services you are eligible for, and neither would the government - but they do give information to people that do. And they use a secret formula to do it. I don't know why you think that the government would do this with credit reports. I mean, all they have to do is pass laws to govern banking and declare that they need to not give folks with "bad credit" loans.
Last time I checked, the no-fly list is not publicly shared.
Agree or disagree with the trucker protest, it's pretty messed up the government invoked emergency powers to freeze people's bank accounts over it.
It's definitely too much power for the government to have.
Meanwhile, government IT tends to be the bottom of the barrel. Though, many government contracted sites are just fine.
Overall, the incentives are not quite aligned for security and a company that does not have to care.
And need I remind you that the NSA had millions of sensitive recirds stolen by a single IT tech?
So no, actually, the NSA's security apparently isn't that great
The argument I was opposing is 'the government can't do anything right compared to the private sector', not 'we need an NSA apparatus to secure our credit scores'.
> And need I remind you that the NSA had millions of sensitive recirds stolen by a single IT tech?
Which private company is immune to whistleblowers?
Are you talking about the contractor? Who worked for a private business?