{"id":234099,"date":"2026-04-21T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/privacy-commissioner-renttech-platforms-must-stop-unfair-and-excessive-personal-information-collection\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:55:14","slug":"privacy-commissioner-renttech-platforms-must-stop-unfair-and-excessive-personal-information-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/privacy-commissioner-renttech-platforms-must-stop-unfair-and-excessive-personal-information-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy Commissioner: RentTech platforms must stop unfair and excessive personal information collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Privacy Commissioner: RentTech platforms must stop unfair and excessive personal information collection<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au\/privacy-commissioner-renttech-platforms-must-stop-unfair-and-excessive-personal-information-collection\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-21 18:27:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

A determination by Australia\u2019s Privacy Commissioner has found the 2Apply rental technology platform, operated by InspectRealEstate, collected excessive personal information and did so by unfair means.<\/p>\n

The findings follow a year-long investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). The determination requires InspectRealEstate to cease collecting certain categories of information from prospective renters, including gender, student status, citizenship status and visa expiry, and details of previous living history.<\/p>\n

In the determination, Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind pointed to what she described as a significant power imbalance in the rental property market, which she said is exacerbated by the rental crisis and rising costs of living.<\/p>\n

\u2018Renters often lack real choice when making rental applications. Either they hand over personal and private information, including ID documents and payslips, or risk housing precarity or even loss,\u2019 Kind said.<\/p>\n

\u2018This not only places them at risk that their applications will not be considered fairly and equitably, but that their personal information may be compromised in a data breach or cyber attack.\u2019<\/p>\n

The OAIC said the determination found InspectRealEstate contravened Australian Privacy Principle (APP) 3.2 by collecting personal information that was not reasonably necessary for its functions or activities. It also found the platform collected personal information by unfair means in contravention of APP 3.5, in circumstances where individuals had limited choice and there was a significant power imbalance between renters and real estate agents, property managers and landlords.<\/p>\n

The OAIC said the decision considered the design and structure of the 2Apply form and applied the concept of online choice architecture, focusing on how the presentation of choices can influence decision-making. The determination observed the form deployed…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Privacy Commissioner: RentTech platforms must stop unfair and excessive personal information collection https:\/\/australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au\/privacy-commissioner-renttech-platforms-must-stop-unfair-and-excessive-personal-information-collection\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/personal-information-collection.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-234099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy","tag-breach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234099"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234101,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234099\/revisions\/234101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}