CFPB Updates Whistleblower Website and Calls for Tech Workers to Act

On December 15, 2021, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had redesigned its whistleblower webpage to enhance tech worker’s reporting experience. This redesign includes: 

        1.            Additional information about the mechanisms for submitting information and the process once information is submitted.

        2.            Descriptions of the type of information the CFPB is seeking, "including information about the use of machine learning models and algorithmic bias related to consumer financial products and services.”

After a submission of a whistleblower report, CFPB subject-matter experts—which includes technologists¾will review and determine credibility and initiate analysis and investigation.

These efforts by the CFPB are in response to the “evolving financial landscape” that evidences a prevailing¾and, according to the CFPB, “commonplace”—use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the financial sector.  AI has been a common topic of conversation in the financial sector, and this shift by a federal agency demonstrates that financial institutions should prepare themselves for an increase in AI use in the industry. Accordingly, financial institutions should consider a review and, if necessary, update of their policies and procedures to account for this shift.