Harcourts Udy Realty Explain Changes to The Privacy Act
Tuesday 22 October 2019, 6:06PM
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The Government is currently in the process of making changes to the Privacy Act. The Minister of Justice introduced a Bill amending the current Act on 20 March 2018, and the final Parliamentary Justice Select Committee report on the Bill can be found on the New Zealand Parliament website. The Bill had its second reading on 7 August 2019.
The Privacy Act governs how agencies collect, use, disclose, store and give access to personal information. An agency includes a government department, business, religious group, school, and also a landlord or property management company.As a landlord or property manager, you have obligations under the Privacy Act to manage personal information responsibly.
If a person thinks their privacy rights have been breached and they have suffered harm as a result, they can make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner’s office, which works to resolve these complaints. If unresolved, these can end up in the Human Rights Review Tribunal. It’s a time-consuming process, so their advice is that the best policy is to try and avoid a complaint in the first place.
Harcourts Udy Realty realise that landlords need to collect information in order to choose a tenant, and they also need to collect information during the tenancy, but you need to ensure you only collect information that is necessary and not that which is unnecessary and privacy-intrusive.
Are you asking for information that is highly sensitive, like what a prospective tenant spends their income on? Or what religion they belong to? A useful rule is to only ask for the minimum amount of information you need. When choosing a tenant, read the Privacy Commissioner’s guidelines on what a landlord can ask for. Advice is also available on their website in our AskUs FAQs.
There is also a lot more information on their website at www.privacy.org.nz so for more information on rental appraisals, residential property management North Shore and professional property management please go to www.udyrealty.co.nz .