Lafayette Reporter

In an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana expressed his concerns about the Securities and Exchange Commission's Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) and its potential threat to the privacy of American investors. Senator Kennedy called the CAT a "disaster waiting to happen" and urged his colleagues in Congress to take action to protect investors' personally identifiable information.

The CAT is a government-owned database that collects and stores detailed information about investors' transactions in the stock market. Under the new regulation, the SEC has access to sensitive personal information such as investors' full names, birth years, addresses, and the details of their stock transactions. Senator Kennedy argues that this level of access goes beyond the SEC's role of protecting investors and instead invades their privacy.

"The SEC never had this level of access to personally identifiable information previously. The brokers would often have to store the information, and then the SEC could request the information for investigations. Now, the SEC wants all this information directly," Senator Kennedy wrote in his op-ed.

He further emphasized the extent of the information being collected, stating, "The SEC stops just shy of asking each investor to name their middle school crush before it receives all this customer information and stuffs it into one massive government-owned database called the Consolidated Audit Trail."

Senator Kennedy highlighted the potential risks associated with the CAT, stating, "The CAT is a ticking timebomb of sensitive personal information that hackers cannot wait to detonate." With the private information of approximately 158 million American investors at stake, he urged his colleagues to join him in prohibiting the SEC from collecting information on every transaction and in requiring the deletion of the information already gathered.

To address these concerns, Senator Kennedy introduced the Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act. The bill aims to prevent the SEC from forcing financial institutions to turn over every investor's personally identifiable information and mandates the deletion of any information already collected by the agency under the new rule.

"Roughly 158 million Americans invest in the stock market. The CAT is a privacy and financial disaster waiting to happen. My colleagues in Congress should join me in working to shut down the CAT and restore the privacy of American investors," Senator Kennedy concluded.

The full op-ed by Senator Kennedy can be found in the Washington Examiner, and the text of the Protecting Investors’ Personally Identifiable Information Act is available for reference.

To find out more, go to this link: https://www.kennedy.senate.gov/public/press-releases?ID=3ACA9B59-155C-4F4C-99BC-0D054CC86AD2