Statement of CFTC Commissioner Dawn D. Stump on Data Protection Initiative

March 1, 2019

Santa Barbara, CA – Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Dawn D. Stump issued the following statement after announcing a Data Protection Initiative at the Managed Funds Association’s MFA West 2019 Conference:

“Today, I am proposing a pathway to enhancing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s data protection measures. Unfortunate realities in our current environment require regulatory agencies to contemplate the scope of our data intake needs while also considering the sensitivity of the data and the potential for unauthorized access.

My aim is to audit the current state of affairs at the CFTC and ensure that we only collect data required for our regulatory responsibilities, remove duplicative reporting streams, explore alternative mechanisms for accessing sensitive information, enhance internal controls for interacting with data, examine response procedures to cyber incidents, and update data retention best practices.

As a regulatory agency with both legacy and recently expanded oversight responsibilities, it is time for the CFTC to comprehensively evaluate our approach to data collection and implement consistent policies and procedures across the many functions required to carry out our mission. Over the course of the past few months I have benefited from many conversations with agency staff and am pleased to know that these matters are front of mind for many of my colleagues.     

The effort I seek to initiate today is a beginning step in evaluating our strengths and vulnerabilities, in an attempt to develop a meaningful policy adapted to ever-evolving threats and advances in data security.”