Top senators on the Senate Finance and Banking committees are demanding that the Federal Trade Commission investigate Envestnet for possibly violating the law by “recklessly selling” Americans’ personal data.
“Financial technology apps, banks and other companies use Yodlee to access, collect and analyze transaction data from consumers’ bank, credit card and other financial accounts,” Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, D-Calif., said Friday in a letter. “Envestnet also sells access to the financial data of tens of millions of Americans.”
Yodlee is the largest consumer financial data aggregator in the United States, according to the lawmakers.
In their letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons, the lawmakers wrote that the consumer data that Envestnet “collects and sells is highly sensitive. Consumers’ credit and debit card transactions can reveal information about their health, sexuality, religion, political views, and many other personal details.”
The more often that consumers’ personal information is bought and sold, the lawmakers wrote, “the greater the risk that it could be the subject of a data breach, like the recent breaches at Equifax and Capital One.”