A website detailing how many properties your landlord owns has been shut down following discourse with the Deputy Privacy Commissioner. The founders of the website believe this decision was “influenced by landlords and property developers”.
A press release from the founders sunset_flowers has revealed that their website ‘What does my landlord own?’ (WDMLO) has been shuttered over concerns of privacy breaches, with the DC (Deputy Commissioner) saying that all New Zealanders, regardless of age, wealth or any other status have a right to privacy, indicating that the listing of all properties owned by a given individual somehow violated that right. Website founders said that while the shutdown wasn’t explicitly ordered by the DC, the changes they would’ve had to make in order to satisfy the Office of the Privacy Commissioner [OPC] would effectively neuter the site. A spokesperson for the Office said that “under the Privacy Act, agencies that collect and hold personal information have a duty to protect it and respect it to avoid causing harm to people.”
The creators claim that the “multiple inaccurate statements and frivolous claims” made by the DC in their “subjective interpretation of the Privacy Act” raise “serious questions about the values of the Deputy Commissioner and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as a whole.”
In a press release, the website creators mentioned that the OPC cited complaints from individuals as a reason for their investigation of the site. The founders have received a few complaints themselves, “disproportionately (>90%) from landlords.” So, assuming that the same people are complaining to both them and the OPC, “the ‘members of the public’ [the OPC] claim to be acting in the interest of” are almost entirely landlords, who the founders don’t exactly believe represent the public. They also suggested that the OPC’s request for extensive personal information on the website's founders was itself an ironic violation of their privacy.
The purpose of the website was to hold accountable the people who benefit from the “hundreds of thousands of people in Aotearoa [who] live in cold, damp, mouldy, and otherwise unhealthy rentals” while the price of rentals continue to climb. In the opinion of sunset_flowers, this is a goal that the Deputy Commissioner is showing an “obvious contempt” for in.
The website, upon first release, received such immense attention that the server crashed: 75,000 searches in the first 48 hours. It used publicly-accessible data to list all properties associated with a given name, but the system wasn’t perfect, sometimes combining multiple individuals with the same name or assuming one owner owned an entire block rather than a single building. Now that it’s being shut down by the founders rather, they worry that landlords will be able to continue hiding their hoarded wealth from the public. But, to keep their mission alive, “we’ve made the software behind WDMLO open source in the hope that others will setup similar search tools.” Jade, a third-year, agreed with the message behind the site: “It's not fair being kept in the dark, and leaves a very unequal power dynamic between landlords and tenants.”
But for now, the founders pushed users towards Terranet, “a website which provides a similar service to WDMLO”. Terranet hasn’t been shut down, which the founders said could be due to the fact that it’s “marketed at property owners, not at tenants… This too raises questions about whose interests the DPC is acting in.” The OPC cannot “confirm or comment on complaints about a particular agency”, and the website is being taken down by the owners in lieu of making requisite changes: changes they believe would be antithetical to the site’s purpose.