Information Commissioners Office – It’s a bit like the TV licence?

Agree with it or not unfortunately it’s a requirement. I’m sure there are lots of drivers out there driving without an MOT who also hasn’t been prosecuted. It’s just another cost factor and again passed downwards.

The thing with this one its not wildly known. Even people with doorbell cameras pointed on public space are supposed to have one. I can’t see the ICO enforcing this just yet but I’m sure this will become the new TV licence eventually.

Another quango that needs to be closed down…

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 04/04/2025 – 10:29
Privacy matters and ICO are responsible for registration and enforcement of our Privacy rights, mainly the General Data Protection Regulation that built on the prior UK Data Protection Act.
This is relevant to Customers, Suppliers and Employees of any business, and provides fines up to 10% global turnover, to really get the attention of Company leadership.
Without this our personal data is not protected by being held for a primary business purpose, as described on the public Privacy Policy, or the secondary purpose of enabling legal obligations, for example the 10 years after leaving Employment when the former Employee might claim for their long term health problems due to working unsafely with Asbestos. The statutory limitation on such claims being 10 years, means that identifying former Employees is a legal requirement for HR to fulfil their legal responsibilities.

As we get more dependant on the ‘tech bros’ and their global service provisions within our everyday life, protecting our data becomes more, not less, important. The rise of Artificial Intelligence, specifically Machine Learning, makes large data sets that can be used for training the machine, more valuable. It’s not just Supermarkets trying to learn how you shop, rather every click online and the attention that you spend is data to feed the Algorithm.
Despite the minor bureaucracy of ICO, everyone should care about their data privacy..

I guess I don’t understand the reasons for having to be ICO registered as a landlord. I think it’s just another tax and a complete waste of money.
I use an agent to find tenants and basically only hold their phone number, email address and AST along with Whats app and email messages. I have the same information from all of my friends. So if I back up my phone with my friends details, I have to be ICO registered?

To me it’s the biggest help for criminals.

I don’t think I’m the only 1 that doesn’t understand it.

When a tenant moves out and when calling utility suppliers to inform them of meter readings, or council to tell them the tenant has moved out and new tenant has moved in and they ask for new tenant details and I ask if I’m allowed to give them this or if it’s in breach of GDPR rules, they all freeze and don’t know what to say, so don’t want the info.

same answer from everyone I speak to, mention GDPR and they just freak out as no one seems to know what you can and cant speak about.

It protects no one except the people that break the law and don’t want others to know about it.

I have been aware of the ICO regulations for many years as a computer coder you get involved in these things (Ie. what information you can and can’t keep on a database).

I can say that there would be few instances of a landlord (even if they use an agent) NOT being exempt from having to register.

Basically if you keep any personal information on a tenant, this also applies for paper records that be be held in some kind of order that you could easily identify the tenant. (ie if someone burgled your property could they identify the tenant from your records whether on computer or paper) – names, contact details, next of kin, rent records.

Pragmatically, does any tenant give a stuff – NO , but a tenant could submit an access request to you and you would have to provide ALL information that you hold on them.

Reply to the comment left by Jason at 04/04/2025 – 10:07Domestic CCTV is exempt from the Data Protection fee. It’s one of the classes of exempt processing in the regulations that enact the fee process. This includes filming a public space if the purpose is solely for domestic purposes.

You might think I have an incentive to say this as much as my business is selling data protection training, but the comments here that DP is a waste of time and the ICO should be abolished are a bit worrying.

The GDPR gives people rights – rights of transparency and access to data which includes emails and WhatsApp messages held by their landlord. Your tenants may understand data protection better than you do; they may work in data protection or compliance. If their knowledge outstrips yours, you’ll be at a huge disadvantage if they make a complaint or – as happens quite often – they take you to court to get access to data or they sue you because data about them is compromised.

My advice is to be at least a little bit curious about how this works, rather than telling yourself it’s a waste of time that won’t affect you.

Reply to the comment left by Tim Turner at 06/04/2025 – 10:05
Tim, as per my previous comment you are 100% correct.

What a lot of landlords must appreciate is that just like a gas certificate, registering with the ICO (probably for 99% of landlords) is a legal requirement. and your ICO registration is renewed yearly. When you frame it like that it makes the situation a bit clearer.

Reply to the comment left by Desert Rat at 04/04/2025 – 17:51
Actually I think landlords need a GDPR privacy notice and ICO registration more than almost any other small business. The information we gather from tenants is almost unprecedented in extent and potential to cause damage and is also very personal. If I were a tenant I would be deeply concerned about giving information about the finances, my background, my relationships and my rental history to someone that had no policy on how they store it, dispose of it and with whom they share it.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 07/04/2025 – 10:55
Its also very useful to be registered because you can turn round to the council or whatever when they ask you about a tenant and say ‘sorry can’t five you that information due to data protection’ – I have actually done this in the past when the council was enquiring about a previous tenant who owed me money