November 25th - 2003

Privacy “know-how” for REALTORS

All the do's and don'ts of privacy compliance may sound complicated, but resources abound for REALTORS to learn everything they will need to know in order to comply with the requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

All the do's and don'ts of privacy compliance may sound complicated, but resources abound for REALTORS to learn everything they will need to know in order to comply with the requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

As of January 1, 2004 all Ontario REALTORS and real estate firms will need to comply with the requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the federal government's new privacy legislation.

Your best resource is OREA's continuing education seminar entitled, Complying with Privacy, a three-hour, seminar focusing on the responsibilities of both the broker and salesperson under PIPEDA.

The seminar will examine how the privacy legislation and the CREA Privacy Code apply to a REALTOR’S day-to-day business. You'll discover what constitutes personal information and when you need to obtain consent to collect, use and disclose that information as well as what you should know about existing information you may have on your clients.

Built in compliance
Complying with the new act should not be difficult for REALTORS as much of the “obtaining of consent” to a very substantial portion of a REALTOR’S service to his or her clients happens naturally in a listing presentation. Even before the need to comply with privacy, REALTORS were required to “tell all” about MLS when listing a property on the MLS. When you take a client’s personal information in order to sell their house, you must explain that the information will be provided to the real estate board in order to be posted on MLS and mls.ca and get their consent to do that. As well, the information will be shared with cooperating brokers, and ultimately with potential buyers. The OREA standard form listing agreement and the buyer agency agreement have these consents built into them (clause 11 of the listing agreement and clause 8 of the buyer agency agreement).

So if you are doing your job as a REALTOR, then you should already be obtaining “informed consent” of your sellers when listing their property on the MLS – exactly what’s required by PIPEDA. Principle 3 of CREA’s Privacy Code states, “The knowledge and consent of the consumer are required for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information except where inappropriate.”

In other words, obtaining “informed consent” means you have told potential clients all about the MLS system and the role of cooperating brokers and what information will need to be disclosed to the board, other REALTORS and potential buyers in order to sell their house. You’ve also made sure they understand what is going to happen with their personal information in order for you to be able to sell their house, including posting it on the MLS.

Tools to help
REALTORS have many resources at their disposal to help in ensuring they comply with PIPEDA. When sitting down to your next listing presentation you should have the following tools with you:

  • A copy of your firm’s Privacy Policy
  • CREA's privacy pamphlet to leave with potential clients
  • An OREA standard form listing agreement
  • A thorough explanation of what personal information you need and what you will be doing with it.
 

Other resources
For dates and locations of OREA's Complying with Privacy seminar check the continuing education course calendaron www.oreacollege.com. For more information on PIPEDA, REALTORS have many other resources including:

  • The new OREA website (www.orea.com) has an entire section devoted to Privacy Compliance, in the “My OREA” – Legal section. This section will contain all of the articles, pamphlets and other documents produced by OREA regarding privacy compliance for REALTORS. In fact, several articles have already been posted.
  • An FAQ document on privacy compliance will be part of the continuing education seminar materials and is also posted in the Privacy Compliance area of the OREA website. This document will be continuously updated and members are encouraged to submit their general privacy questions to be added to this FAQ document. These general privacy questions may be sent to privacy@orea.com.
  • In addition, OREA has provided all real estate boards with sample documents, instructions and precedents in order to help the boards with their privacy compliance requirements.

Still can’t get enough privacy? Visit these other websites too:

The federal government has the entire privacy legislation document online at:
www.privcom.gc.ca/legislation/02_06_01_01_e.asp.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has several useful fact sheets available online at:
www.privcom.gc.ca/fs-fi/index_e.asp

Visit www.realtorlink.ca to view the CREA Privacy Code and the CREA Privacy Toolkit.

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For more information contact

Ontario Real Estate Association

Jean-Adrien Delicano

Senior Manager, Media Relations

JeanAdrienD@orea.com

416-445-9910 ext. 246

Ontario Real Estate Association
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