Dealerships and finance companies aren’t the only operations leveraging technology nowadays. Two of the largest federal regulators — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission — recently outlined how they’re trying to use technology, too.

At the CFPB, director Rohit Chopra and chief technologist Erie Meyer released a statement on enhancing agency capabilities to address transformative technologies. Chopra and Meyer highlighted the three primary ways the bureau is accomplishing this task.

They began by mentioning the agency has embedded more technologists across the CFPB’s core functions.

“Over the past two years, the CFPB has piloted a number of efforts to recruit and embed individuals with technical skills across the CFPB’s work,” Chopra and Meyer said. “Most notably, technologists are now engaged in supervisory examinations, enforcement investigations, and other regulatory proceedings.

“These individuals are assessing a range of business practices, including examining the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in lending, ascertaining compliance with federal law, and identifying deceptive dark patterns,” they continued.

Chopra and Meyer then noted that the bureau also is conducting research and analysis on the application of emerging technologies.

“The CFPB has led a number of research endeavors to identify how technologies are implemented in consumer finance. For example, the CFPB published an analysis on the use of advanced technologies including generative AI in customer service, a report on the use of near-field communication technology in point-of-sale consumer payments, and more,” they said.

“These research efforts have proved to be valuable to market participants, regulatory agencies and the public,” the CFPB officials said.

Chopra and Meyer went on to mention advancing competitive marketplaces and assisting law abiding firms.

“The CFPB supports efforts to advance a competitive marketplace that constantly evolves,” they said. “A key objective for the CFPB is to ensure that emerging business practices are consistent with federal law, and to take action when they are not.

“When appropriate, the CFPB will continue to issue policy guidance to help firms understand their obligation under existing law,” they continued. “This will promote markets that compete on the merits, rather than competing on regulatory arbitrage.”

Activities at the FTC

Meanwhile over at the FTC, officials recently highlighted eight best practices in building tech capacity in law enforcement agencies.

The FTC shared those recommendations during the International Competition Network Tech Forum, with officials saying they recognize that technology is a critical piece of enforcing the laws.

Here are those eight best practices with comments from the FTC about them.

Recognize technology is broad

“With the increasing digitization of the economy, many companies have critical technology components — ranging from key infrastructure, algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence to business models that are based on data collection and processing practices. To assess the behavior of companies, it becomes more and more important to be able to better understand the potential benefits and risks of technology. As a result, the capabilities and knowledge of digital and technologist teams will be relevant and important to an ever-greater share of the work of agencies.”

Take timely action

“Be it detecting consumer harms or anticompetitive conduct, targeting unlawful practices before they are widely adopted, or assessing market conditions that could lead markets to tip — timely intervention can help us tackle problems at their inception, limiting harms, promoting greater competition for innovation, and saving resources over the long term.”

Foster interdisciplinary coordination

“It is important to incorporate a greater range of technological skillsets into agency work and to foster greater collaboration among legal, economic and technology disciplines. Agencies can approach cases, research, and other policy tools from an interdisciplinary perspective, as appropriate to the scope of our agency missions.”

Apply cross-agency and intra-agency coordination

“It is important to value cross-agency and intra-agency coordination, where appropriate, to support meaningful agency oversight of digital and technology sectors. This can help identify and address interconnections between the conditions that give rise to harm, legal violations, or concerns under our applicable legal frameworks.”

Establish and strengthen technology expertise

“It is essential that our agencies continue to strengthen digital and technological capacity to support agency missions and build the skills and capabilities of staff (in-house or in strategic collaborations, e.g., with universities). This includes relying on and integrating new profiles into agencies, such as technologists, software and hardware engineers, product managers, UX designers, data scientists, investigative researchers, and subject matter experts in areas such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented and virtual reality.”

Apply expertise to law enforcement

“Closely integrating technical expertise, tools, and methods will strengthen law enforcement that aims to protect consumers and competition. This will help agency teams to conduct more efficient, rigorous, and faster investigations, reduce information asymmetries and blind spots, and get more effective remedies and better outcomes. With the right technical expertise, competition agencies can make the most of technology for detection purposes and to develop more effective tools for enforcement.”

Strengthen horizon scanning

“The pace and volume of tech developments means that agencies need to be alert and responsive to anticipate problems and take swift action. Among other tools, horizon scanning initiatives can be critical to track and highlight new developments, opportunities, and threats in technology and how they relate to consumers and markets.”

Share best practices

“Agencies will continue to engage in discussions at the expert level with the aim of developing and sharing best practices, elevating agency missions, and facilitating ad hoc discussions to inform timely, relevant, and appropriate enforcement and regulatory action to protect competition and consumers in increasingly digitized economies.”