{"id":1446,"date":"2019-10-30T23:52:21","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T13:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2019-10-31T06:45:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T20:45:44","slug":"tenant-privacy-on-regulator-radar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/tenant-privacy-on-regulator-radar\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenant Privacy On Regulator Radar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Never before has technology taken such an invasive knife to our privacy. It\u2019s a well known fact that our smart phones and appliances track our every move, search, and even our conversations and share this information with \u201cprivate\u201d corporations like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. The ATO will now demand granular data on all trading information and use advanced data-matching to identify anomalies and trigger audits. Banks and financiers these days pick through bank statements with a fine-tooth comb and if they feel an applicant takes too many overseas holidays, or spends too much on cosmetic surgery, may decline to offer them finance. We have seen, first-hand, how dangerous data matching can be in real estate, where unit numbers are scraped off our listings, matched to government title documents that are sold to private entities by the Office of Natural Resources, and then harvested into call-sheets and sold to competitor agents seeking to raid a manager\u2019s complex and acquire his letting pool (read more about it here: https:\/\/theonsitemanager.com.au\/news\/advertising-unit-numbers-exposes-your-mr-to-unnecessary-risks\/<\/a> )<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer\nprivacy rates a very low concern after profit for these conglomerates who take\nan approach of \u201cYou agreed to our terms-of-use, you can deal with it\u201d. At the\nsame time, regulators and government bodies are scrambling to \u201cprotect\u201d\nconsumer privacy, but it seems always the case regulations do more harm than\ngood. Rather than stemming the flow of private data, regulations seem to achieve\nlittle more than create inconvenience for users – we all see the idiotic: \u2018This\nwebsite uses cookies, do you accept?\u2019 messages that we\u2019re now bombarded with on\nmost websites. You can thank the self-licking ice creams of The EU and The General\nData Protection Regulation for this shining example of incompetence, which of\ncourse does absolutely nothing to actually secure consumer privacy (and they\nwonder why BREXIT is a thing). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increased\ngovernment regulation into consumer privacy may not be doing anything to\nprotect us from the prying eyes of corporate America, but it is certainly\nillustrating the impact technology is having on privacy. One thing that is\ncertain: sooner or later (and it would appear to be sooner) it\u2019s going to have\na profound impact on rental applications in Australia and the amount of data we\u2019re\nallowed to collect and store in their processing. New Zealand\u2019s Office of the\nPrivacy Commissioner (OPC) has forged ahead in this field and gives us a rather\nbleak insight into what may lie ahead for Australian property managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Privacy\nAct guidelines in NZ set out specifically what a property manager can, and\ncannot ask someone in processing a tenancy application. ( read it here: https:\/\/www.privacy.org.nz\/assets\/Uploads\/2019-08-07-Privacy-Act-guidance-for-landlords-and-tenants-A649457.pdf<\/a>\n). Information you would be\nprohibited from gaining about a tenant in NZ includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n