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Under the privacy act, personal information can only be used a) with the permission of the owner (ie the lot owner) and b) only for the purpose intended or stated.
According to this government fact sheet, the Privacy Act only applies to organisations with an annual turnover of more than $3 million, unless prescribed under the Privacy Regulations (2013). This rule is what allows owners the right to see all the email addresses held by the owners corp or strata managers for their scheme.
Section 7 of the Privacy Regulations prescribes real estate agents as coming under the Privacy Act only in reklation to a residential tenancy database (see below) and I’m not sure if this specific behaviour would breach the Act.
The Privacy Act also has rules on Direct Marketing, but again, I’m not sure if a small real estate agency would be covered.
Just to be clear, I think what this rental agent is doing is immoral and wrong – I’m just not sure if it’s illegal.
Again, it’s up to individual owners to block the emails. The question remains of how the estate agent got hold of the email addresses (unless he is also an owner). That would seem to be where the privacy breach occurred.
Privacy Regulations – 7 Small business operators treated as organisations
Small business operators that operate residential tenancy databases
(1) For subsection 6E(2) of the Act, a small business operator that operates a residential tenancy database is prescribed.
(2) For subsection 6E(2) of the Act, the following acts or practices of a small business operator of the kind mentioned in subsection (1) are prescribed:
(a) an act done, or a practice engaged in, in connection with collecting personal information for the purpose of establishing or maintaining a residential tenancy database;
(b) an act done, or a practice engaged in, in connection with maintaining personal information on a residential tenancy database;
(c) an act done, or a practice engaged in, in connection with using or disclosing personal information that is stored on a residential tenancy database.
Definition of residential database (in Privacy Regulations):
residential tenancy database means a database that:
(a) stores personal information in relation to an individual’s occupation of residential premises as a tenant; and
(b) can be accessed by a person other than the operator of the database or a person acting for the operator.