Financial Privacy & Security

Current Campaigns

Identity Theft Protection

In an increasingly high-tech marketplace, we trust businesses with more of our personal information than ever before. Yet many companies aren’t as careful as we think—concealing security breaches or questionable sales of information that make consumers vulnerable to identity theft. Read more.

Predatory Lending

Payday lenders, rent-to-own stores, tax refund anticipation loan (RAL) firms, auto title pawn stores and others have built an industry by kicking low-income, working-class and military families when they’re down. Some states have reined in these predatory lenders, but not all—and certainly not Congress. U.S. PIRG fights to regulate the industry’s misleading promises and triple-digt interest rates, and to educate consumers on how to protect themselves. Read more.

The Truth About Credit

More than half of all Americans carry credit card debt, partially because of a variety of unfair practices used by credit card companies to trap consumers in a cycle of over-priced debt. Read More.

Overview

Conducting the day-to-day business of our lives shouldn’t come at the cost of our financial security. But too often, the big banks, insurance and investment companies and other firms take advantage of unsuspecting consumers or manipulate the system. U.S. PIRG fights to make the financial marketplace work fairly, to protect vulnerable Americans from predatory lending terms, to equip consumers with the knowledge to protect their finances, and to expose business practices that make us vulnerable to identity theft, fraud and abusive credit rates.

Hidden fees, abusive interest rates and lax security have become all too common in our under-regulated, high-tech marketplace. WashPIRG works to ensure that consumers' privacy and finances are secure.

News

U.S. Senate Poised to Gut New Identity Theft Regulations in Washington 7/26/2005

Washington Legislature Passes Security Freeze Bill 4/20/2005

Washington House Passes Security Freeze Bill 4/12/2005

Newsroom

ISSUES