Any landlords on here?

wombat2002

I have a friend who is renting a flat and he's always worried about doing things to the letter of the law,he has another worry today and says he's concerned about data protection with regards to having his tenants e mail address and phone number of which he needs to communicate with from his phone and tablet,he's worried about new laws that came in to effect in March 2018 concerning the storage and handling of personal details,does anyone know anything about this and perhaps what he should do,many thanks

arciere

I get worried very easily....but that....

Davesnave

How on earth is he to communicate with them if he deletes all their personal details?


A notice in the local rag? Semaphore? Smoke signals?


Oh hang on, print the details, place in jam jar and bury in the garden till needed. I won't tell.

wombat2002

Exactly but big brother decides the rules and there hasn't been much publicity about this

arciere

wombat2002 wrote: »

Exactly but big brother decides the rules and there hasn't been much publicity about this

Yes, but, come on....
Now that I think about it, none of my friends have given me written permission that I can keep their mobile number :think:

wombat2002

It just so happens that you have to register and it costs £40 so somebody is making money from this.I imagine you can avoid it if you use an agency and they process and store details but my friend deals with the tenant himself

Rosemary7391

Okay. I handle data protection for a small organisation and I understand how tricky it can seem if you're not used to it.



He will have a "basis for processing" contact details for his tenants, so he doesn't need to ask for consent or anything like that. So far so good.


He does need to take responsibility for keeping that data secure. In this instance, a passcode on his phone and tablet + basic attention to not downloading viruses would likely be sufficient.



In practice unless he posts them on facebook or something he'll be fine!


Edit: I don't think he'd need to register but he can check for himself here:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/2259094/dp-fee-guide-for-controllers-20180601.pdf

bouicca21

I'm also involved with data protection for a small charity. There has been loads of publicity about the new rules. As Rosemary indicates he has a valid reason for keeping that data - if he really wants to go belt and braces he can issue a statement to his tenants about the uses to which their data will be put.

Otherwise his obligation is to keep it secure and not recycle it to anyone else.

Slinky

bouicca21 wrote: »

Otherwise his obligation is to keep it secure and not recycle it to anyone else.

And delete it when it is no longer required.

wombat2002

Thanks for your help

Andalya

It sounds like you're talking about GDPR - it's really more of a marketing piece of legislation to stop companies from assuming consent to spam you with newsletters.
Any communications between a landlord and tenant are reasonable business communications and wouldn't really be at risk of falling foul of this, unless they're sharing the email address/phone number they have, or sending them unsolicited marketing messages.
As far as storage goes, as long as the tablet has a secure password (and any cloud software being used does too), and the drive is encrypted where possible, your friend can demonstrate that reasonable efforts have been made to keep data private, so they'll be fine.