The House Financial Service Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations has scheduled a hearing for December 16, 2015 on “Examining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Mass Data Collection Program.”

The witnesses scheduled to appear are:  Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker, Wayne Abernathy, American Bankers Association Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Mark Calabria, Director of Financial Regulation Studies, Cato Institute, and Deepak Gupta, Founding Principal of Gupta Wessler PLLC.

According to the Committee Memorandum, the hearing will examine privacy, transparency, data security, and other relevant issues pertaining to the CFPB’s data collection efforts.  Those efforts have been the focus of criticism from lawmakers at several hearings at which Director Cordray appeared.  Last year, a GAO report found that the CFPB needed to do more to reduce the risk of improper collection, use or release of the data it collects.