Chairman Hill, Wagner, Loudermilk Applaud SEC Acting Director on Protecting the Financial Privacy of Americans
Washington,
February 11, 2025 -
Today, House Financial Service Committee Chairman French Hill (AR-02), Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair Ann Wagner (MO-02) and Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) issued the following statement after Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Acting Director Mark Uyeda announced they will provide an exemption from the requirement to report Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT):
Chairman Hill said, “With over 60% of Americans' private information already public, there was no reason for the SEC to require individuals to report additional PII to the CAT. I applaud Acting SEC Director Uyeda for taking steps to protect the financial privacy of American investors and Americans’ personal data. The House Financial Services Committee will build upon the work of Rep. Barry Loudermilk in the last Congress to provide statutory certainty to ensure no PII will be released from CAT.”
Subcommittee Chair Wagner added, “The SEC should never have been so recklessly storing the personal information of Americans. Today’s decision is a victory for all of our Constitutional rights. Main Street investors deserve to be able to invest without the SEC unnecessarily storing their sensitive data in a single repository at great risk of a data breach. I will continue to work with Chairman Hill and my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee to make this permanent and protect Americans’ privacy and the security of our financial system.”
Rep. Barry Loudermilk stated, “For years, I have been fighting to end the SEC’s unconstitutional collecting of personal financial information through the Consolidated Audit Trail, which has been tracking every individual investor’s transactions through an unaccountable centralized database. Not only is collecting all of this information unconstitutional and unnecessary, it is also a huge cybersecurity target for foreign adversaries and criminal hackers. Today’s exemptive order from the SEC is a huge victory for personal financial privacy, and it shows the Trump Administration is serious about curtailing government overreach and protecting our personal privacy.”
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