Who is governed by this act? I had always assumed it was only the financial institutions but the act takes a much broader interpretation that includes real estate settlement services and probably online thin title plants as well. The law requires that financial institutions protect information collected about individuals. But every thin title plant and county online site is openly displaying social security numbers, signatures, and other financial information to everyone over the internet.

Financial Privacy: The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act

The Financial Privacy Rule governs the collection and disclosure of customers’ personal financial information by financial institutions. It also applies to companies, whether or not they are financial institutions, who receive such information. 

Financial Privacy Rule and the Safeguards Rule. These two regulations apply to “financial institutions,” which include not only banks, securities firms, and insurance companies, but also companies providing many other types of financial products and services to consumers. Among these services are lending, brokering or servicing any type of consumer loan, transferring or safeguarding money, preparing individual tax returns, providing financial advice or credit counseling, providing residential real estate settlement services, collecting consumer debts and an array of other activities. Such non-traditional “financial institutions” are regulated by the FTC.