Privacy commissioner John Edwards wants to hear from tenants if they think their landlord or property manager has asked for more personal information than warranted under the Privacy Act, and if they have ever been put on a blacklist.

Property Investors Federation president Andrew King says the Privacy Commission’s probe is reasonable. But he believes it could wrongfully fuel a public perception that the practices are widespread across the whole sector.

“A perception is often worse than the reality,” he says.

“Tenants who haven’t had a problem with their landlord or property manager won’t speak up. It will be only those who have grievances and that gives the impression that all landlords are demanding too much private information when we don’t believe they are.”

Edwards says that his office has been made aware that some property management agencies and landlords are asking for detailed information from prospective tenants as part of their selection process, while others are using the public forums to compile lists of so-called “bad tenants”.

“I am concerned about some of the practices we are seeing, particularly during a time when pressure on tenants is high,” says Edwards.

“Landlords are able to collect information to assess whether a tenant can pay rent, however, collecting their bank statements to gauge how they spend their money is unfair and unreasonably intrusive.

“Landlords should only collect the minimum amount of personal information necessary to make that
decision.”

While there are some types of information a landlord can always legitimately seek from prospective tenants, such as proof of identity or whether they have any pets, Edwards says other information regarding a tenant’s nationality, marital status, gender or detailed banking history are almost never justified.

So-called “blacklists” lack transparency and can unfairly keep some tenants out of the market because of inaccuracies.

Federation executive officer Sharon Cullwick says there was a private Facebook group that had a secret blacklist of tenants.

“It was a closed group but the privacy commissioner shut it down and I haven’t heard of any other such lists.”