The Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970 was/is promoted as a great milestone in helping people to get protection from secret databases that companies were creating on the whole populous. That part was true and it did prevent this problem that was arising of mass secret corporate dossiers on everyone (but secret government dossiers on everyone, of course still fine). On the other-hand, it gave the credit bureaus legal protection in creating these databases and people could only recover actual or statutory damages, attorney's fee, court costs and punitive damages if the violation was willful.[1]
Since all those false reports ("identity thefts") are never willful on the part of banks and other lenders, there is almost no penalties that can be brought. The consumer bringing the most reasonable charge of libel against a credit bureau is specifically prohibited by this law, if the credit bureaus follow all of the rules (allowing people to see their reports, removing false info (good luck with that), etc.). If not a case of regulatory capture at the time, then at least this law needs to be updated given how important credit reports have become, how easy fraudsters can get your report tarnished, and how hard it is to get your reports corrected.
Since all those false reports ("identity thefts") are never willful on the part of banks and other lenders, there is almost no penalties that can be brought. The consumer bringing the most reasonable charge of libel against a credit bureau is specifically prohibited by this law, if the credit bureaus follow all of the rules (allowing people to see their reports, removing false info (good luck with that), etc.). If not a case of regulatory capture at the time, then at least this law needs to be updated given how important credit reports have become, how easy fraudsters can get your report tarnished, and how hard it is to get your reports corrected.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act