The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission issued exemptive relief for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) that eliminates the CAT’s collection of certain customer identifying information, alongside a public statement from Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw criticizing the change as reducing regulators’ ability to investigate wrongdoing and respond to market events. Under the order, the CAT will no longer collect, and broker-dealers will no longer report, the name, address, and year of birth of natural persons associated with transformed Social Security numbers or individual taxpayer identification numbers. Crenshaw argued that the reduction will impair surveillance and investigative capabilities, including detecting fraud and market manipulation, assessing foreign ownership concerns, reconstructing market disruptions, and identifying victims, while noting that Rule 613 includes security, confidentiality, and access-control requirements for CAT data and that the Commission had previously taken exemptive action to remove individual Social Security numbers from CAT reporting.
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission 2025-02-10
U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission grants exemptive relief removing key customer identifiers from Consolidated Audit Trail reporting
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission granted exemptive relief for the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), removing the requirement to collect certain customer identifying information. Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw criticized this change, arguing it weakens regulatory capabilities in fraud detection and market oversight. The order stops collecting names, addresses, and birth years linked to transformed Social Security or taxpayer identification numbers.