Broker Transparency & Personally Identifiable Information

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA’s) request for comments on ‘Broker Transparency’ was extended through March 2025 and generated nearly 7,000 public responses.  

The 2024 Broker Transparency NPRM reinforced valid broker registration and 48-hour post-delivery record visibility. However, it critically failed to outlaw contractual waivers of transparency rights, or to mitigate arbitrary or vindictive blacklisting and unethical discrimination.  

The Broker Transparency Rule faced repeated administrative delays, from May 2025 to May 2026, and remained unreleased past its most recent July 2026 NPRM release target. As of September 2nd, the supplemental proposed rule is on OIRA review (RIN 2126-AC63, Docket FMCSA-2023-0257), which leaves the May 2020 SBTC and OOIDA transparency petitions unresolved.  

Shifting strategies, SBTC recently filed a separate emergency petition against the FMCSA in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Rather than targeting broker transparency, this litigation alleges FMCSA's direct violations of the Privacy Act of 1974 by improperly disclosing commercial drivers' Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to third-party vendors without consent, alongside the collection of unauthorized UCR administrative fees. 

Why Is This Lawsuit Newsworthy? 

In my opinion, there is a convergence upon us in the re-regulating of domestic commercial transport and global trade on multiple modalities.  

New challenges are emerging, as changing trade lanes, tariffs and faster processing force organizations to set clear guardrails for setting transaction settlement rules using AI.  

The technical enabling of early tracking and tracing capabilities has led to exposure of commercial entities’ identities, leading to a tremendous increase in fraud from transparency and personally identifiable information, the two primary edge issues addressed here.  

When national laws are well-established, and outcomes  predictable, courts can be powerful equalizers, leveling the playing field between small industry associations and government regulators. They can also be used as delaying tactics. Standards bodies are traditionally made up of interested stakeholders who want to help make the world a better place, and recognize the geopolitical constraints of laws that are enforceable typically against only one party. 

SBTC petitioned the FMCSA in May 2020 to require broker transparency and specify “the waiver” of transparency rights illegal, strengthening 49CFR 371.3, but outcomes are still uncertain.  

Because of inaction over the past 6+ years, as a country, we are still processing commercial transactions being matched by licensed property brokers and unlicensed dispatchers. The industry still does not have a DOT Final Rule for this commercial transportation transparency requirement. 

Concurrently, the recent Supreme Court’s Montgomery decision narrowed Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) preemption rights for property brokers. Brokers now face explicit legal liabilities under a heightened but still underdefined “Duty of Care” standard when vetting carriers at selection to avoid future negligent hiring claims. 

It seems that the newly released FMCSA MOTUS registration system, with qualifying owner verification, at www.login.gov, and DOT non-domiciled CDL enforcements have significantly reduced the number of authorized transportation service providers. Some compliance sources have reported the old DOT MC system had nearly 1.9 million entities, and that as of today, since May 2026 when MOTUS went live, there are roughly 109,000 entities registered. A 94% reduction of entities who haven’t yet crossed over to MOTUS. 

Broker Transparency will be released in the Federal Registry again very soon and while there is still time, get your operating paperwork “right” (i.e. compliant) and prepare to conduct business safely and ethically or face being removed with a revocation of authority. 

Why Is SBTC Suing the FMCSA Now? 

When years of administrative requests yield limited results, court action remains the only viable option. SBTC is suing not only because of general procedural delays, but the violation of the Privacy Act of 1974. It would appear that the current interest from SBTC is to help frame the boundaries of PII and Broker Transparency. 

Digital Freight Markets missed the post-COVID chance to harmonize and simplify the chaotic spot market. Instead, influencers wanting to “trade above the market,” led outside venture investors to the terribly inefficient spot marketplace, and encouraged them to sink more than $50 billion in investments in these unregulated property broker/shipping exchanges/freight marketplaces.  

These shipping exchanges efficiently extract payments from unsuspecting shippers, and pay the lowest rate they can get away with to carriers.  

Know your customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) anchor financial transactions. Standards bodies and litigation (case-law) drive cross-border data interoperability, trade compliance, speed, and privacy protection.  

Until new regulations are live, industry participants must independently verify entities and individuals while carefully protecting sensitive personal data. Supply chain stakeholders should consider following NIST guidelines for data security and perhaps even adopting a GDPR-style data erasure practice to handle personal information expectations.  

To operationalize a true KYC framework, the industry must prioritize non-waivable transparency rights under 49 CFR § 371.3, banning contractual waivers that hide transaction events and costs, without disclosing sensitive PII.  

Finally, stakeholders should rely on international SDOs to achieve agile, cross-border data interoperability rather than waiting on delayed federal and international rulemaking.  

Transparency and protection of PII are the bookend issues to generate certainty in global trade transactions, both domestically and globally. 

Michael Darden is CEO of DFM Data Corp., Inc.