The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., is federal legislation enacted to promote the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of consumer information contained in the files of consumer reporting agencies. It was intended to shield consumers from the willful and/or negligent inclusion of erroneous data in their credit reports. To that end, the FCRA regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including consumer credit information. Together with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the FCRA forms the foundation of consumer rights law in the United States. It was originally passed in 1970, and is enforced by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and private litigants. History Before standardization of credit scoring, statements of character were integral to credit reports well into the 1960s. With credit reports containing probing details about personality, habits, and health, in the hearings on the Fair Credit Reporting Act lawmakers were troubled that individuals were helpless to clear up errors. The Fair Credit Reporting Act, as originally enacted, was title VI of , entitled An Act to amend the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to require insured banks to maintain certain records, to require that certain transactions in United States currency be reported to the Department of the Treasury, and for other purposes. It was written as an amendment to add a title VI to the Consumer Credit Protection Act, . The Fair Credit Reporting Act was one of the first data privacy laws passed in the Information Age. The findings of the U.S. Congress that led to the Act and the Act's regulatory goals set the direction of information privacy in the U.S. and the world for the next sixty years. Among these innovations were the determination that there should be no secret databases to make decisions about a person's life, individuals should have a right to see and challenge the information held in such databases, and that information in such a database should expire after a reasonable amount of time. Consumer reports Commonly referred to as credit reports, a consumer report "contains information about your credit—and some bill repayment history—and the status of your credit accounts. This information includes how often you make your payments on time, how much credit you have, how much credit you have available, how much credit you are using, and whether a debt or bill collector is collecting on