Rental apps collect too much tenant data: Choice

The consumer group Choice is calling for reform of rules in the tenancy market, after finding that renters are force-marched into privacy-invasive tenancy apps, charged for having intimate personal data collected and stored, and subjected to potentially discriminatory automated decision-making.

The consumer advocacy organisation picked out apps like 2Apply, Snug, tApp, and Ignite as collecting unnecessarily detailed personal data.

According to Choice, personal data collected by the apps goes far beyond that required to identify a rental applicant.

Choice also highlighted a lack of consumer choice, since if a platform is used by all the agents representing a particular property, the applicant has no opportunity to refuse using it.

The organisation said in its national survey, 41 percent of renters felt “pressured” to use a rental application, and 60 percent were uncomfortable with the amount of data collected.

The apps “pass along processing costs to the users… and give themselves wide latitude on the data they collect and what they use it for – without doing nearly enough to guarantee the security of this personal information”, Choice said.

Choice scanned the privacy policies of different platforms to see what they tell consumers about their data collection.

REA Group, for example, which operates the Ignite platform, tells prospective renters it collects: “name, address, phone number, email, gender, occupation, personal interests and any other information provided."

Further, if a user accesses its services over social media platforms like Facebook, REA Group apps including Ignite will collect social network data like user name, site ID, profile photo and email address.

Renters also told Choice they were asked for employment status, marital status, information about their children, income and other data.

Choice also found renters were levied for background checks, rent payments, and failed payment penalties.

Consumer data advocate Kate Bower drew attention to the way the data collected by the industry is increasingly deployed to automate decision-making, something which Choice believes can unfairly disadvantage some renters.

“A sore lack of regulation in this market means these automated decision-making systems could increase barriers and discrimination for renters, and potentially exclude them from housing," Bower said.

Choice wants a range of government actions to protect renters, including further reform of the Privacy Act, a commonwealth inquiry into automated decision-making, a ban on unfair trading, and modernised state tenancy laws.

“State and territory governments should enforce fee-free rental payment options and fee-free access to tenants’ information in databases, and prohibit invasive application questions," Choice said.

Last year, Victor Dominello as NSW minister for customer service and the digital economy expressed concern at excessive real estate industry data collection, and asked the NSW rental bond agency to step into the role of verifying tenant IDs.

iTnews has asked the department whether incoming minister Jihad Dib has a policy position regarding tenants’ privacy.