Privacy fears over info on new strata Hub

I am interested in your thoughts on the NSW Strata Hub [which comes into effect on June 30]. The actual concept seems good however there are elements that raise concern :

• The government is proposing that the secretary and chairperson’s contact details be available to all on the strata roll including tenants. This would mean 24/7 availability for volunteers.
• Tenant details will be imported from the Rental Bond Board. So although not actually on the strata roll held by the owners corporation they will be on a de facto one created by Strata Hub.
• The chairperson has no role outside of meetings under the Act so why are their details required at all?
• A new role of emergency contact has been created. As this is not an officer of the strata committee (although it may be) is this role covered by insurance?

The government’s position is that information is restricted in distribution. In a building of 100 lots it would be available conservatively to 500 people across owners and tenants. There is nothing to stop this information being passed on to others.

It is hard enough getting volunteers as it stands. This is not going to help.

My main concern is for the privacy of the office bearers as I see this as a real issue with their details available to everyone on the strata roll. I have been doing this for a long time and know that communal living can lead to massive personality conflicts.

Secondary is that it is being rushed. There is not much sympathy for strata managers however at this time they have no way for bulk uploading of details (many managers having over 1000 schemes) and no corporate account facility, so we are expected to manually load them under our strata managers personal NSW Service accounts.

The department have not advised how the $3 per lot is to be paid to them (A nice $2 million + earn for the government, every year). Debacle is over-used but certainly applicable.

Lance O’Loughlin

Absolute Strata Management