Landlords are collecting too much personal information: BC privacy commissioner

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Have you been asked to undergo a credit check or hand over other private information while filling out a rental application?

BC’s privacy commissioner has released with a new report (see below), suggesting landlords are going too far when it comes to vetting potential tenants.

“Landlords are over-collecting information, when it comes to prospective tenants looking for accommodation,” says Drew McArthur, the acting privacy commissioner. “We found 10 out of 13 landlords that required credit checks for prospective tenants — and credit checks are not appropriate, if you’ve got good references.”

McArthur points to the tight rental market is already stressful for tenants, and he worries that will pressure people looking for housing to give out unnecessary private information. “When landlords are asking for all kinds of sensitive, personal information, prospective tenants feel like if they don’t provide it, they may not get an opportunity to have a place to live.”

“The other concern is when multiple landlords — if they are applying for more than one place to live — may be doing credit checks which can affect their credit rating.”

The report also finds landlords are scoping out your Facebook profile.

“Information you post on social media is not about your suitability as a tenant. It’s about your friends, your family members — all of that is over-collection of information,” explains McArthur.

LISTEN: NEWS 1130’s Martin MacMahon speaks with Acting Privacy Commissioner Drew McArthur

He adds in many cases, landlords are gathering information that, if used, would violate the Human Rights Code. He notes that these requests are a violation of the Personal Information Protection Act.

“You can’t collect age information or background or ethnicity — none of those things are appropriate. And don’t collect information from social media platforms or search engines.”

“It is technically illegal to collect information about someone that does not relate to the purpose for which you are collecting that information,” he adds.

McArthur says his report includes an outline of what information you are required to give — and what is almost never required.

“Tenants can point landlords to that guidance, outlining what their obligations are — under our privacy legislation — and what’s appropriate both from a privacy perspective and a human rights perspective.”

On a BC government website, it outlines steps for starting a tenancy, it says that “Landlords Should Also Consider…” and lists many things, including “conduct a check to confirm income and financial suitability.”

McArthur finds this concerning, saying “we are working with the provincial government to address that.”

“Some of those pieces of information they’re talking about are somewhat different than what we uncovered in our report. What our report focused on is prior to establishing a tenancy.”

McArthur recommends limiting how much personal information is required on tenant application forms.

Landlord BC says there’s a ‘knowledge gap’

Landlord BC says it was involved and consulted by the privacy commissioner, and admits it knew he had a number of complaints. While its CEO agrees the association has had some concerns about a lack of regulatory responsibilities for the member-driven organization, David Hutniak says some of McArthur’s characterizations are unfair. “He’s sort of characterized it as broad-based abuse by our landlords or our industry, or ignoring of the privacy act etcetera. I think that’s an unfair characterization, I mean that’s not best practices, that’s not how we operate.”

Hutniak agrees there are some issues, but adds Landlord BC is working to educate landlords. “There’s a significant cohort, particularly in sort of that secondary market, the smaller landlords, that we unfortunately can’t engage. And I think there’s a knowledge gap there. It’s specific to the residential tenancy act, and to the privacy act, so I don’t think there’s anything malicious necessarily going on here but I would be willing to agree that there’s a knowledge gap, and that’s something that really needs to be addressed and we’re working to try to address.”

When it comes to credit checks, Hutniak says there are two areas of concern he has with the report. He feels credit checks are important, especially for smaller size landlords. “We encourage our members to use it in all tenancies. We have an arrangement through a third party who is licensed by a credit bureau to provide these. The credit check that our members access is what’s called a ‘soft credit check’, so it has no negative implication on anyone’s credit worthiness.”

In his view, Hutniak says the checks aren’t so invasive that they would contravene the person’s privacy.

Landlord BC is also surprised with the privacy commissioner’s position on social media use. “Certainly we think it’s an important tool. Obviously, I think there’s an opportunity to do better education around the appropriate use of that information, but to simply say that it’s something that’s off the table entirely, we struggle to understand why.”

Hutniak hopes to talk to McArthur about some of Landlord BC’s concerns, and wants to see a “fuller conversation” take place.

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