Ford government moves forward on free access to personal credit info, security freezes

The Ontario government is moving forward with plans to allow Ontarians greater information about their credit scores and to place security freezes on their credit in order to prevent fraud.

The province passed enabling legislation from Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery Todd McCarthy last year, and his ministry has now begun consultations on the accompanying regulations.

It's been more than five years in the making — similar legislation was passed by the previous Liberal government shortly before the 2018 election, but not enacted by the PC government.

"We recognize that Ontarians are facing increased budgetary pressures and understand how important it is for Ontarians to be able to monitor their financial well-being," said spokesperson Matthew D’Amico in an email.

"Consumers are looking to protect their credit reporting information, ensure the accuracy of information that consumer reporting agencies hold, and reduce the harms resulting from identity theft."

The regulations will enable consumers to receive free electronic access to their consumer reports and credit scores once per month, as well as place an explanatory statement on their consumer file to contextualize their personal and credit information, such as the circumstances of a loan, said D’Amico.

Consumers can also put security freezes on their credit, which would prevent creditors or lenders from accessing their reports so that victims of identity theft cannot have loans taken out under their names. The measure has long been available in the U.S. and more recently to residents of Quebec.

"These changes would be particularly beneficial for seniors, newcomers, and vulnerable Ontarians who are at a greater risk of becoming victims of identity theft," said D’Amico.

According to a consultation paper, the government is planning to regulate the country's two major consumer credit reporting agencies — Equifax and TransUnion — by name, to ensure they comply with the new requirements. 

The requirements under consideration include allowing consumers to access their own consumer report electronically once a month, within two days of their request, as well as giving consumers the sources of credit information, contact information of any person on whose behalf the consumer’s file has been accessed within the three-year period preceding the request, and the name and contact information of any person to whom the agency provided a consumer report within the one-year period preceding the request. 

They would also be required to disclose information about range of possible consumer scores, the primary factors used by the agency to generate the score, and the date the score was generated, the consultation paper says. 

Claudiu Popa, a cybersecurity expert and co-founder of KnowledgeFlow, said "it's boggled the minds" of many people for years that Canadians outside of Quebec haven't had access to security freezes, when they are common in the United States.

The first advice people get when they search online for help preventing identity theft is to place a freeze on their accounts with the consumer credit reporting agencies, and are surprised to find out it can't be done in most of Canada.

Popa also urged the government to ensure its regulations require the companies to make it easy for people to request their credit scores and reports from the companies — and that they don't have to jump through hoops to reapply every month.

That way, people could sign up for reports from both companies — one at the beginning of the month and one in the middle — to more frequently monitor their credit for any problems. Email alerts for changes to people's credit scores and a monitoring dashboard would be especially useful, he added.

That said, Popa said he respects the province for taking this step.

"I think it's definitely a change whose time has come," he said.

Popa also noted that both consumer credit rating agencies offer paid credit monitoring services, and when companies suffer data breaches — a daily occurrence now — the typical recourse they offer to consumers is paying for those services.

Should that information be freely accessible, breached companies would have to do more for affected customers, he added.

In a statement, Equifax Canada said it "is committed to helping people live their financial best. Now that the proposed regulatory changes have been published by the Ontario Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, we are conducting a review and considering potential feedback for the ministry."

TransUnion said it is “reviewing the province of Ontario’s proposal and (looks) forward to working with (the government) to further improve and strengthen the consumer reporting landscape.”

In a committee hearing on the bill last year, Clarke Cross, the director of government relations for TransUnion Canada, spoke generally positively about the bill, while warning that some details would be challenging to implement. Cross called it a "game-changer" that Ontarians would have free access to their credit score and lauded the government for making that move, and for establishing a framework for security freezes.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park. This story was updated after publication to include the comment from TransUnion.