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@JimmyT said:
Just having access to the email addresses of all the owners – something privacy laws don’t allow the rest of us – is a huge advantage for a chairman or secretary who wants to silence or undermine their critics.
I’m curious about this.
I’m an OC chair and have personally been given email addresses by most of my building’s owners/residents/agents.
I sometimes give them out, in email correspondence, but only on strata matters that affect that owner/resident/agent. I can’t see anything in privacy laws that says I can’t. But I don’t think I’m required to give them out when they have been personally given to me.
And I can’t see anything in privacy laws that prevents any owner from getting a copy of the strata register that may or may not have email addresses.
It’s a curious area. And it’s often stated that email address can’t be given out due to privacy legislation. I’m not sure that’s correct.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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The strata roll will include the name of the owner and their address for the purposes of the roll (which may be different to the lot). Email addresses and telephone numbers don’t form part of the strata roll.
Email addresses and phone numbers constitute personal information under the Privacy Act in this case, because when you link them to other information that may be held in relation to the person, that person can be identified with that information.
As a rule you shouldn’t give out email addresses or telephone numbers without permission. You can ask the person if you can disclose it to another person.
Whether or not you are bound by the Privacy Act is another question, but to be on the safe side assume you are.
In our scheme another owner has just asked the manager for our contact details and I don’t want him to have mine, so I said no.
This is a rather important sub-topic, that I’ve looked at a few times.
I have received a lot of views from lot owners who think they know the Privacy Act. But it has turned out that they didn’t. It seems that in the majority of circumstances the Privacy Act does not apply to stratas (OCs/BCs) at all. And in general, the affairs of a strata are an open book to all those within the strata. So anything in the strata records is available to any member of the strata. That includes emails and phone numbers used in correspondence with the strata (eg to the manager/committee). I don’t think a strata organisation itself can share that information with anyone for commercial purposes but they can for internal strata purposes.
I do know that all my strata managers in various states, seem to handle it this way. All will supply owner email address and phone numbers if they have them on file. One SM, of a very large strata management firm, has told me that they will hand over a CD-ROM of all the correspondence and records they have, relating to a strata plan, to any owner in that strata plan who formally requests it. Not much privacy there! But I can’t see that it’s illegal.
Here’s some information on the topic from Consumer Affairs Victoria, but as the Privacy Act is a Commonwealth Act, it should be relevant Australia wide:
Protecting privacy in owners corporations
Your owners corporation may only collect and use personal information in a fair and lawful way.
The personal information it holds must be accurate, up-to-date and secure.
As a general rule, the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988:
- does not apply to owners corporations with less than $3 million turnover (also called gross income)
- will apply to an owners corporation, regardless of turnover, if it discloses personal information to another party for a benefit, without the consent of the person concerned, or without being authorised to do so by an Act of Parliament (such as the Owners Corporations Act 2006).
Your owners corporation should:
- require a written request from all people seeking to inspect the owners corporation’s records. This identifies the person making the request and can be used to report to the owners corporation, and
- supervise records inspections to ensure that documents are not lost, destroyed or interfered with.
A person whose details are kept in the owners corporation’s records or register may apply to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to restrict access to that information. The tribunal will only restrict access in exceptional circumstances and only for a limited time.
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