Consumer Bureau has been collecting NSA like data on consumer transactions

Washington Examiner:
The ongoing fight for control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may have significant effects on the bureau's mass acquisition of private financial records, according to privacy advocates.

The CFPB pools vast quantities of data for research purposes, including millions of Americans’ credit card records, which it says are anonymized, commercially available and tracked to help consumers, not to spy on them.

Critics doubt the adequacy of safeguards, however, and liken the credit data-collection to the National Security Agency’s monitoring of internet and phone records under laws that allow tracking of spies and terrorists.

Mick Mulvaney, who assumed command of the CFPB on Monday morning, has been broadly critical of the independent agency as a “rogue" organization.
...
Calabria testified to Congress in 2015 that the CFPB’s collection, “particularly in the area of credit cards, poses significant threats to our Fourth Amendment protections.”

“These extensive data collections are in no way necessary for the CFPB to achieve its statutory mission,” he argued.

“For a variety of reasons, the CFPB has become a highly partisan issue. Were it to use the financial records of its critics in an attempt to silence or intimidate these critics, it would not be the first agency to do so,” Calabria warned.
...
Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., another forceful critic, told the Washington Examiner in an emailed statement that he believes “the CFPB was a rotting, unaccountable agency” and that he hopes Mulvaney’s appointment "opens a larger conversation about the need to rein in the CFPB’s power and actually make it accountable to the American people.”
...
What research has the agency done that has benefitted consumers?  The article does not point to one and there is no explanation as to what benefits might derive from the collection.  Are the records used to spot cyber attacks and credit card fraud?  If, have they worked? 

Other than bureaucrats collecting checks what has this agency accomplished since being formed?  I do not recall one story on any accomplishment that benefited consumers. 

I still think Dodd-Frank, which set up this agency, was primarily a vehicle for Democrats to avoid responsibility for the financial debacle they caused by forcing banks to make loans to people with poor credit.  I have seen nothing of value coming from it and have seen reports that it has hurt smaller banks.

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