Soon all communications containing non-public, personal information
(NPI) will have to be encrypted and some in the industry are dragging
their feet. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau will soon require
emails containing this sensitive information to be encoded so the
independent recipient is the only one who can decode and view the
content. NPI can include not only someone’s social security number, but
any information provided by the consumer for the purpose of conducting a
financial transaction such as addresses, dates of birth and driver’s
licenses.
Robert Reich, president of NextDeal (formerly DigitalDocs)/ creators of SafeSend, offers this service to title companies.
“Directly
from the agent’s Outlook email client or a convenient web portal, we
provide the title agency with unlimited secure email transmissions to
all parties,” he said. “Title agents have told me they are very
concerned about the upcoming CFPB regulations and the decision to make
the lender/bank ultimately responsible for everything that is detailed
on the Final Disclosure Statement — a document which itemizes all the
charges relative to the closing from a variety of vendors, many hired by
the title agent. This will force many changes on the industry
including, most likely, lenders or banks holding title agents and their
vendors to same or similar standards of data protection and security for
NPI data as the lending institutions.”