Australia: Issued ruling in OAIC investigation into Property Lovers's data scraping practices compliance with Privacy Act

On 22 November 2024, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) concluded an investigation into Property Lovers Pty Ltd under the Privacy Act 1988 focusing on its Elite Mentoring Program. The investigation found breaches of several Australian Privacy Principles, including unfair collection of personal information, failure to notify individuals about data collection and inadequate data quality measures. The ruling noted that the program distributed lead lists containing sensitive personal data of individuals in distressed property situations, obtained from public sources and CoreLogic, a third-party service. The OAIC ordered the company to cease unfair data collection and distribution, destroy improperly collected data within 30 days and update its privacy policy with evidence of compliance.