Tenants’ names and owners’ email addresses on strata roll

OK, so show me one instance where an owners corp or strata manager has been ordered to reveal the email addresses of owners to another owner, and that has established a precedent.

Just one …

This is such a significant interpretation of the Act that if it occurred it would have been recorded.

The Legge case was in 2013.  The Australian Privacy Principles were updated in 2014.

Privacy Principal 6 (below) applies most directly and it basically says that when information was provided (e.g. email addresses) for a principle purpose, it may not be revealed for use in a secondary purpose without the permission of the individual concerned or “the use or disclosure of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order.”

Now, I am in favour of email addresses being made available to all owners.

However, I can understand the argument of strata managers etc who might say that the principal purpose for gathering email addresses is the distribution of official owners corp documents, however communications between strata owners is a secondary purpose and therefore covered by privacy laws requiring the consent of the individual owners concerned.

I’m not saying that this point of view is incontrovertibly correct – I would just like to see a tribunal or court ruling before I went against the prevailing opinion in the strata industry.

In the Legge case, the CTTT Member ruled that the privacy laws did not supersede the strata Act because they specified that restrictions did not apply to information required by law (such as owners postal addresses). Email addresses were not even mentioned.

If there has been a similar NCAT ruling on email addresses, I haven’t seen it, and I can understand why strata managers are reluctant to reveal email addresses.  Email addresses are much more powerful means of direct communication than postal addresses and it may well be that the Tribunal would treat them differently if called upon to adjudicate.

NB:  In the section from the Australian Privacy Principles below, an “APP Entity” means the organisation in question, in our case, an owners corporation.

6   Australian Privacy Principle 6 — use or disclosure of personal information

Use or disclosure

6.1 If an APP entity [like an owners coporation] holds personal information about an individual that was collected for a particular purpose (the primary purpose), the entity must not use or disclose the information for another purpose (the secondary purpose) unless:

1. the individual has consented to the use or disclosure of the information; or
2. subclause 6.2 or 6.3 applies in relation to the use or disclosure of the information.

6.2 This subclause applies in relation to the use or disclosure of personal information about an individual if:

1. the individual would reasonably expect the APP entity to use or disclose the information for the secondary purpose and the secondary purpose is:
   1. if the information is sensitive information — directly related to the primary purpose; or
   2. if the information is not sensitive information — related to the primary purpose; or
2. the use or disclosure of the information is required or authorised by or under an Australian law or a court/tribunal order; or
3. a permitted general situation exists in relation to the use or disclosure of the information by the APP entity; or
4. the APP entity is an organisation and a permitted health situation exists in relation to the use or disclosure of the information by the entity; or
5. the APP entity reasonably believes that the use or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary for one or more enforcement related activities conducted by, or on behalf of, an enforcement body.

Note: For permitted general situation, see section 16A. For permitted health situation, see section 16B.

6.3This subclause applies in relation to the disclosure of personal information about an individual by an APP entity that is an agency if:

1. the agency is not an enforcement body; and
2. the information is biometric information or biometric templates; and
3. the recipient of the information is an enforcement body; and
4. the disclosure is conducted in accordance with the guidelines made by the Commissioner for the purposes of this paragraph.

6.4 If:

1. the APP entity is an organisation; and
2. subsection 16B(2) applied in relation to the collection of the personal information by the entity;

the entity must take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure that the information is de-identified before the entity discloses it in accordance with subclause 6.1 or 6.2.

Written note of use or disclosure

6.5 If an APP entity uses or discloses personal information in accordance with paragraph 6.2(e), the entity must make a written note of the use or disclosure.

Related bodies corporate

6.6If:

1. an APP entity is a body corporate; and
2. the entity collects personal information from a related body corporate;

this principle applies as if the entity’s primary purpose for the collection of the information were the primary purpose for which the related body corporate collected the information.

Exceptions

6.7 This principle does not apply to the use or disclosure by an organisation of:

1. personal information for the purpose of direct marketing; or

2. government related identifiers.

The strata role is the property of the owners corporation.

14 at legge states

Part of the primary purpose of the collection of lot owners’ addresses and their inclusion on the strata roll is so they can be contacted by other lot owners and the Executive Committee of the Owners Corporation.

Thirdly, even if that is not part of the primary purpose for the collection of lot owners’ addresses, disclosure of the information on the strata roll is required by section 108 of the Act, which means that disclosure of the addresses falls within the exception set out in Clause 2.1(g).

The principles are basically the same; clause  2.1 g in schedule 3 is very similar to APP 6 (2) which is a reference to being information required by a Law or Act.

I can ask the same question, do you have a case to prove me wrong?

Let’s just say we agree to disagree on this one as neither of us are Judges in any court or tribunal nor are we the privacy commissioner.

I am telling flat chatters that as a lot owners they have every right to inspect the strata role. That’s the law.

I was commenting to posts in this thread about people who are being told point blank by strata managers that the strata roll cant be given out due to privacy concerns.

This is of course absolute rubbish.

I’m not aware of any law that allows for any information to be redacted or removed  from the strata roll when an inspection takes place either.

David Ng said: As Secretary of my small OC I prefer email correspondence to paper. 

Yes, but what do you do if someone in your scheme wants everyone’s email addresses? That’s not a challenge – I genuinely want to know how you would handle it.

Col Schultz said: “Assuming you mean a request from a lot owner to see the emails, I would take that as a request for an inspection of the records and handle it that way.”

So how would you “handle it” when your strata manager says that his professional organsiation, the SCA, tell its members that they shouldn’t provide email addresses as part of a strata roll inspection?

Hypothetical challenges are all well and good but they don’t help anyone.  I have contacted the State government on this and they are still  trying to come up with a definitive answer.  Until such times as they are instructed otherwise, I’m pretty sure strata managers will take the line of least resistance and not provide email addresses as part of the strata roll.

As I pointed out several posts ago, there is widely used strata management software out there that allows SMs to hide owners’ email addresses with the click of a button.

So, again, how would you “handle” that?