Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Financial Retailers Protection Association (FRPA)?
FRPA is a Minnesota based non-profit, funded by its member dues and assorted grants. It is open to all member financial and retail institutions and law enforcement officials. The concept of FRPA is to form an information sharing network between financial institutions, merchants and law enforcement officers. FRPA's website and databases allow information regarding financial crimes to be entered into our database and then distributed to interested participants in the network. Sharing this information allows our members to detect and prevent financial crime of all sorts. It is also a vital tool in the prosecution of offenders.
Who can use FRPA's services?
FRPA may be used free by any law enforcement agency or officer, or any member financial institution or merchant. All users must be authenticated for membership and approved by the network administrator of FRPA.
If my company joins FRPA, can others in our company also receive alerts, or are we just limited to one user?
FRPA is a national service that sends alerts about criminals committing crimes all over the country.
What if I only want to receive news alerts about the crimes in my region?
FRPA's brand new website will be offering geographic selection as a feature for our alerts. Each member will have the ability to choose as many geographic locations he/she want to receive alerts from, thereby eliminating wasted time.
Not at all. Once a company joins FRPA, you may have as many people sign up as you like in that organization. Several of our member organizations have dozens of regular users who use the service for input and searches every day.
If I join FRPA now, am I a member forever?
There is an annual fee that is generally based on your company assets. Membership dues start at $25 and increase based on the size of the member company.
I'm a fraud investigator for my police department and my city isn't going to pay for us to sign up. What can I do?
FRPA's complete package of services is free for all government agencies, including local municipal police departments and sheriff's departments. We also have members in the FBI, the Postal Service, the ATF and many other federal and state agencies.
Does information used by the FRPA, its members or its website conflict with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA)?
GLBA generally requires protection of the security and confidentiality of customer records and information. However, GLBA contains certain exceptions, including § 502(e)(3) which provides as follows: "GLBA shall not prohibit the disclosure of nonpublic personal information to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud, unauthorized transactions, claims or other liability." Since FRPA members will provide information that is for the purpose of protecting and preventing actual or potential fraud, theft, or other liability, such sharing of information is specifically permitted under GLBA.
What implications does the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) have on FRPA and its members?
The FCRA contains certain exclusions from the definition of "consumer report." One such exclusion is any report containing information solely as to transactions or experiences between the consumer and the person making the report. Under that exclusion, information published by the FRPA that relates to the transactions or experiences between the consumer and the person making the report would not be a consumer report within the meaning of FCRA, and such a report will not violate FCRA regulations. Thus, members of FRPA should limit the information published to specific experiences between the consumer and the financial institution publishing the information on the FRPA website.
Does FRPA' actions conflict with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network/Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) reporting requirements?
The Bank Secrecy Act prohibits a financial institution, its directors, officers, employees or agents from disclosing to any person involved in the transaction that a SAR has been filed. SARs must be filed only on certain transactions that are suspicious in nature, involve potential money laundering or violations of the Bank Secrecy Act when aggregate dollars involved in the transactions exceed reporting thresholds. The BSA does not prohibit information contained in a SAR to be shared on a voluntary basis with other persons or law enforcement, so long as the fact that the SAR has been filed is not disclosed.
Am I going to be able to enter data and perform searches myself?
Yes, users will have the ability to post and search in real time, thus creating a real state-of-the-art tool for you in preventing financial crime and review older data.
How can I find and contact another member?
Just log in and search for the member of your choice by location, name, agency or company. We have over 1,400 users with contacts in most government agencies. Police officers finding that there is a common offender will have the ability to search to locate contact information for crime victims and other investigators working on those similar cases.
Can anyone change the alert entry I create?
The system administrator or his/her designee may alter add/delete information from your posting if it is deemed to violate the law or put at risk the safety of a victim or a witness. No other member will have the ability to amend your data. The data will be stored in a searchable archive that will assist investigators, merchants and financial institutions for several years to come.
Who has access to reading alerts?
While generally, members have the ability to search for and receive all alerts, some items are protected because of the data privacy act. For your protection and ours, we limit alerts to certain user groups when that is the case. Thus, when a user selects a "law enforcement only" alert, then only law enforcement officers may view that particular alert. For technical reasons, FRPA staff may edit or request information to be added prior to posting any alert. Users maintain full control over who may view their own alert.