Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) is having a busy week fighting for stronger consumer protections. First he introduced legislation that would stop companies from using private arbitration to escape facing judgment in courts, and yesterday he introduced H.R. 1913, the Application Privacy, Protection and Security (Apps) Act of 2013, a bill that could fix the gap between the privacy consumers expect from apps on their mobile devices and the experience they actually receive. Rep. Johnson explained the bill during a speech to the State of the Mobile Net conference:

The APPS Act would require that app developers give effective notice about data collection and obtain consent from consumers before collecting personal data. Trust in the mobile marketplace is crucial to its continued growth. Transparency is the cornerstone of this trust.

The APPS act would also require that developers securely maintain personal data. And it would give consumers a clear way to permanently delete their personal data once they stop using an app.

Smartphones are a regular feature of modern life, with 114 million Americans using them as of July 2012, but developers for mobile apps have struggled to keep pace with consumer privacy expectations. A February Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report showed that 57 percent of all app users “have either uninstalled an app over concerns about having to share their personal information, or declined to install an app in the first place for similar reasons” and less than one in three “feel they are in control of their personal information on their mobile devices.”

And there is an awful lot of personal information on mobile devices that many apps can access — including contact lists, browsing habits, and geographic location. One 2012 study discovered 19 percent of Apple iOS 5 apps accessed address books without user knowledge or consent and 41 percent tracked location. It also found more than 40 percent of them didn’t encrypt user data once it was collected, potentially leaving it vulnerable to hackers.

A number of consumer advocates have praised the APPS Act, including experts from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Consumer Federation of America, and Consumer Watchdog, Privacy Project Director at Consumer Watchdog. Susan Grant, Director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation of America calls it “a common-sense approach to an urgent problem,” saying the legislation will “give consumers the information and control they need to use apps with confidence.”

Two weeks ago, a petition asking the White House to act on a recent Library of Congress decision that restricted consumer use of cell phones reached the required threshold for a response. The administration replied today by agreeing that it’s time to legalize cell phone unlocking:

The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties. In fact, we believe the same principle should also apply to tablets, which are increasingly similar to smart phones. And if you have paid for your mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network. It’s common sense, crucial for protecting consumer choice, and important for ensuring we continue to have the vibrant, competitive wireless market that delivers innovative products and solid service to meet consumers’ needs.

This is particularly important for secondhand or other mobile devices that you might buy or receive as a gift, and want to activate on the wireless network that meets your needs — even if it isn’t the one on which the device was first activated. All consumers deserve that flexibility.

Cell phone unlocking — allowing consumers control over the phone they paid for, like the ability to switch carriers but use the same device, or swap out their SIM card to avoid excessive roaming charges overseas — is prohibited under a provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DCMA) that covers digital locks. The Library of Congress had previously issued exceptions to the provision in 2006 and 2010, but denied an renewal of the exception in fall of 2012.

While the White House cannot reverse the decision due a jurisdictional dispute outlined in the Library of Congress’ response to the White House statement, the White House endorsed a range of options to change the status quo, including “narrow legislative fixes” and examination of the issue by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also issued a statement today confirming they are looking into the issue because “it doesn’t pass the common sense test” among other reasons.

43 Republican Senators last week signed a letter saying that they would block any nominee to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — regardless of the nominee’s qualifications — unless the agency is weakened and made subservient to other bank regulators. As economist Paul Krugman put it, “it’s an open attempt to use raw obstructionism to overturn the law.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) declined to sign that letter, but he is attempting to weaken the Bureau nevertheless. In a separate letter to CFPB director Richard Cordray, Portman laid out his belief that Cordray should embrace the weakening of his own agency:

“As a nominee to lead an independent agency, you have an opportunity to stake out a reasonable position on these proposals independent of the White House,” [Portman] wrote in a letter sent to Cordray Friday. “Now is the time to exercise that independence and lend your support to these commonsense reforms to make the Bureau more effective and accountable to the American people, so that the Senate can find a path forward on your nomination.” [...]

In particular, Portman called on Cordray to come out in favor of bringing the CFPB’s budget under the control of congressional appropriators, and actually replacing the director position with that of a bipartisan commission. The Ohio senator told the former Ohio attorney general that the bureau is in need of “basic accountability reforms” to bring its “unaccountable structure” under control.

In order to ensure its effectiveness, the CFPB needs an independent director and an independent stream of funding. Otherwise, it will share the fate of other bank regulators, which are weakened by partisan commission packing and lack of funds. House Republicans, for instance, have managed to undermine the Dodd-Frank financial reform law by denying regulatory agencies the funds to implement it.

The GOP has made it clear that obstructing any nominee for any reason is a strategy that is on the table. Portman would prefer that Cordray accede to that reality by weakening his own position voluntarily.

An NBC News investigation released yesterday revealed that credit reporting agency Equifax has assembled a private database containing the employment and salary records of more than one-third of U.S. adults, and is perfectly fine selling that data off to the highest bidder:

Some of the information in the little-known database, created through an Equifax-owned company called The Work Number, is sold to debt collectors, financial service companies and other entities… [...]

Its database is so detailed that it contains week-by-week paystub information dating back years for many individuals, as well as other kinds of human resources-related information, such as health care provider, whether someone has dental insurance and if they’ve ever filed an unemployment claim. In 2009, Equifax said the data covered 30 percent of the U.S. working population, and it now says The Work Number is adding 12 million records annually.

The information is collected with the cooperation of employers, who pay The Work Number to provide verification services for former employees, surrendering data at the same time. Fortune 500 companies and government agencies representing 85 percent of the federal civilian population contract with The Work Number. And since Equifax is a credit reporting agency, rather than just a data-mining outfit, it’s all perfectly legal for them to provide this information to debt collection agencies.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, opened a congressional investigation into the data-mining practices of several corporations including Equifax in October of last year, sending letters to each company asking for extensive details about all data collection operations since the start of 2009. But the investigation focuses on background check services rather than it’s financial reporting services.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rolled out new rules today to clean up the mortgage servicing industry, which has been at the root of several scandals, including the use of the now-infamous “robo-signers.” The new rules will provide important protections for homeowners, no longer leaving them subject to the most pernicious mortgage servicing practices. Here’s what the rules will do:

– End dual tracking. This practice involves banks starting foreclosure proceedings on a homeowner at the same time that the homeowner is being evaluated for a mortgage modification. The end result is many homeowners lose their homes when they think they are receiving a modification. Under the rule, “Servicers cannot start a foreclosure proceeding if a borrower has already submitted a complete application for a loan modification or other alternative to foreclosure, and that application is still pending review.”

– Force balance transparency. The new rules call for clearer monthly mortgage statements and more advance warnings of changes like interest rate hikes. Servicers must also “promptly” credit payments that homeowners make.

– Limit “forced place” insurance. “Forced place” insurance is the insurance that lenders purchase on behalf of borrowers if they think there has been a lapse in coverage. The policies are often far more expensive than standard home insurance, and servicers receive a cut of the payments. Abuse of forced place insurance became a big industry during and after the buildup of the housing bubble: “From 2006 to 2011, direct earned premiums for lender-placed insurance more than tripled, to $3.1 billion from $954 million.” As the New York Times noted, “the cost [of forced place insurance] more or less ensures foreclosure for a household on the brink; it can also hurt a borrower’s chances for a loan modification.” Under the new rules, servicers must warn borrowers that a forced place purchase will occur and “If servicers buy the insurance but receive evidence that it was not needed, they must terminate it within fifteen days and refund the premiums.”

However, the new rules do not create a single point of contact for borrowers (who often get the runaround at banks by being passed off between different bank employees). The California Homeowner’s Bill of Rights includes a mandatory point of contact, as does a new bill Minnesota Democrats are trying to enact. The rules will not be implemented for another year, leading one housing advocate to say that the CFPB is just “providing mortgage servicers advance notice to do their dirty work.”

Mitt Romney, who last night secured the Republican presidential nomination with his win in Texas’ primary, has already made clear his desire to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, enacted in response to the financial crisis of 2008. But according to Glenn Hubbard, one of Romney’s economic advisers, even if Romney can’t get rid of the law wholesale, he’d still like to dismantle important aspects of it:

For example, he said Mr. Romney would propose:

– replacing the new system for dismantling failing financial companies that was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law with a new system, which he declined to specify.

– a new system of consumer financial regulation that either moves the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau outside of the Federal Reserve or breaks up the new agency and places the powers within existing financial regulators.

That Romney would break up and disperse the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s duties amongst existing financial regulators shows just how little he cares to address the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

After all, it was the fact that consumer protection responsibilities were dispersed throughout the regulatory system — and were no regulator’s primary responsibility — that allowed banks to get away with so much pernicious behavior. The creation of the CFPB was meant to address this problem, giving consumers at least one regulator explicitly tasked with looking out for their interests.

Romney, of course, has been raking in money from Wall Street interests who fought the creation of the Bureau tooth and nail. Back in January, Romney called the Bureau the “most powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy in the history of our nation” and falsely claimed that it is “headed by a powerful and unaccountable bureaucrat with unprecedented authority over the economy.”