Concerns domestic tenants required to share excessive personal data to secure leases

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-29/concerns-tenants-sharing-excessive-data-to-secure-lease-ahuri/106269564

19 Comments

  1. What the hell? Is this report like 10 years old? This has been happening for ages!

    They should be required by law to delete your data after your application is reviewed and have strict cyber security controls in place.

  2. Agent demands your payslips and they know exactly how much to hike your rent for when they get the chance

  3. I’m less fussed about the data I’m sharing than I am in trusting realos to have any kind of decent data security

  4. KennKennyKenKen on

    Renters are treated like second class citizens because they have no leverage for rights.

    They can’t speak up because they will just be replaced with another tenant that won’t speak up

    If the govt refuse to do anything to curb increasing house prices, they need to implement policies that will protect renters, and enforce those policies.

  5. It’s insane the amount of data tenants have to hand over, even prospective tenants. And as a landlord most of it is simply stuff I could care less about. I care that you can pay the rent and not going to trash the joint. Everything else is crap.

    But fun fact. My property manager has just as much of my PII data as tenants have. Also mostly irrelevant to the act of renting out a property.
    In fact, they’ve got more as they have copies of the title deeds, insurance documentation, etc.

    And I have exactly zero trust that any of that sensitive data is stored securely and not leaked or sold to third parties.

  6. Vivid-Fondant6513 on

    It’s very concerning, but this article fails to address the elephant in the room – that is that the information is almost certainly being sold on to data brokers to be weaponized against Australian citizens, a process that in turn is almost certainly illegal, but requires the government to do their fucking jobs.

    Also more policies are not going to fix the problems mentioned, as we already have an enforcement issue with regards to current data protection laws.

  7. Lilac_Gooseberries on

    I refused to fill out any applications that used things like Snug and 2apply because one of them wanted contact details of every housemate I had in the last five years (couldn’t provide even if I wanted to), as well as the contact details of previous managers and a five year employment history. I just asked the real estate for a traditional form and claimed that I had privacy concerns, they provided it, and I got the property.

  8. It would not be hard to pass GDPR laws, but what political party wants privacy laws for Australia. They would rather have laws that forces citizens to surrender their privacy rights to the like of Palantir.

  9. Sasquatch-Pacific on

    I shudder to think about the volume of personally identifiable information that is sitting in the email inboxes of dipshit property managers. Most of them can hardly write a coherent email that answers basic questions they are asked, yet alone ensure secure handling of personal data.

  10. Real_RobinGoodfellow on

    And the dodgy third-party apps you need to use!… it’s so BLATANTLY just data-farming, and you need to PAY for the privilege as a tenant. Crazy

  11. Pretty sure all that data is being sold too. Foreign interests know everything about us for sure.