The Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 (RFPA; codified at , ''et seq.'') is a

United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as ...

, Title XI of the

Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978 The Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978 is a United States federal law. Among other measures, it established the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC, under Title X of the act) and authorize ...

, that gives the customers of financial institutions the right to some level of privacy from government searches. Before the Act was passed, the United States government did not have to tell customers that it was accessing their records, and customers did not have the right to prevent such actions. The Act came about after the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

held, in '' United States v. Miller'' 425 U.S. 435 (1976), that financial records are the property of the financial institution with which they are held, rather than the property of the customer. Under the RFPA, the government must receive the consent of the customer before they can access said customer's financial information. The Act prescribes statutory damages of $100 per violation, and a number of different violations can be aggregated in a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

. Under the RFPA, the FBI could obtain records with a

national security letter A national security letter (NSL) is an administrative subpoena issued by the United States government to gather information for national security purposes. NSLs do not require prior approval from a judge. The Stored Communications Act, Fair Cre ...

(NSL) only if the FBI could first demonstrate the person was a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Compliance by the recipient of the NSL was voluntary, and states'

consumer privacy Consumer privacy is information privacy as it relates to the consumers of products and services. A variety of social, legal and political issues arise from the interaction of the public's potential expectation of privacy and the collection and ...

laws often allowed financial institutions to decline the requests. In 1986, Congress amended RFPA to allow the government to compel disclosure of the requested information. The

USA PATRIOT Act The USA PATRIOT Act (commonly known as the Patriot Act) was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appro ...

of 2001 amended the RFPA.

References

External links

RFPA information page
provided by the

Electronic Privacy Information Center Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is an independent nonprofit research center in Washington, D.C. EPIC's mission is to focus public attention on emerging privacy and related human rights issues. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom ...

, a public interest group United States federal banking legislation United States federal privacy legislation {{US-fed-statute-stub

See also

References

External links