Companies that handle people’s financial data should be held responsible for protecting it. Santa Barbara County taxpayers shouldn’t have to accept anything less.

Throughout my career in public service — working with members of Congress and the Assembly, county supervisors, city officials and special districts — I’ve focused on a simple principle: institutions should be transparent and accountable, and they should serve the public.

That principle applies not only to how government spends tax dollars, but also to how companies handle our financial information.

Payment histories, transactions and spending patterns can reveal a great deal about our lives. Protecting that information should be a basic responsibility.

Yet a growing group of companies — often called “Big Fintech” — can collect and use financial data under standards that don’t always match the safeguards banks are required to follow.

The gap matters.

When oversight is weak, protections can be inconsistent. Data may be reused, repackaged, shared or sold, creating risks that go well beyond an inconvenience.

A breach or change in company policy can affect people’s privacy, security, credit and financial stability.

In Santa Barbara County, trust matters. So does accountability when that trust is broken.

For some fintech companies, customer data is more than information to protect. It can be used to build profiles, develop products, train models and create new ways to make money.

Customers may not understand how their information influences decisions — or which partners and systems can access it.

The effects can reach beyond the individual customer. Spending patterns may reveal household routines, and those routines can expose family members to unwanted scrutiny or data sharing.

Children’s information, too, can become part of datasets families never intended to provide.

There’s no reason for protections to depend on whether financial data is handled by a bank or a technology company.

Banks operate under rules designed to safeguard customer information. Fintech companies may have access to that same sensitive data, but the protections applied to them are not always comparable.

Why should consumers be protected from one set of risks in one part of the financial system, but left exposed in another?

There’s also the problem of unpredictable enforcement. When companies rely on internal rules that aren’t clear or consistently applied, customers can be surprised by account closures or lose access to services without a meaningful explanation or way to appeal.

That can hurt individuals and small businesses alike. Businesses that depend on payment platforms need reliable access to those services to operate every day.

If a company wants access to people’s financial information, protecting it should be part of the cost of doing business — not an optional promise or an afterthought.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should establish a durable, consistent standard: any company that handles financial data should meet protections comparable to those required of banks.

The information is sensitive, the stakes are high, and safeguards shouldn’t depend on the type of company collecting it.

Santa Barbara County taxpayers understand what accountability means: rules that apply across the board, and enforcement that keeps pace when new technologies become profitable.

Big Fintech may present itself as just a tool. But a company with access to people’s most sensitive financial information is more than a tool.

If it uses that access to profit, it should also be accountable for protecting the data.