By Jeremy Wilkinson, Open Justice multimedia journalist, Palmerston North of 
A Facebook group called Bad Tenants has come under fire in recent years. Photo: 123rf
A court has declined a man's request to force a private Facebook group, where landlords publicly name and shame undesirable tenants, to release any information it holds about him.
The group Bad Tenants has come under fire from renter advocates in recent years as it provides a space for landlords to share personal information about their tenants as a warning to other property owners, essentially blacklisting them.
The Privacy Commission and Renters United have stated explicitly that this sharing of private information is against the law.
Adam Sheehan first took his complaint to the Privacy Commissioner last year. The commissioner granted an access order, meaning the administrators of the Facebook page were required by law to hand over any information they held about him.
However, that was in 2021 and the people who run the group have not complied and have since deleted the group.
Sheehan then took his complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal to have the access order enforced, but in a decision released today it declined his request and said it was essentially "unenforceable".
"They [the Facebook group] don't have the right - neither morally nor legally - to be making public s**t lists about people," he told Open Justice.
"They're just flouting the law. Tenants might just be information and a paycheck to them ... but they're actually real people and they have rights."
Sheehan said he was disappointed by the decision but understood how the tribunal reached it.
Under the Privacy Act 2020, any individual can request information that any organisation holds about them - whether it's the police, the Ministry of Health or an insurance broker - and they have to supply it.
However, because a Facebook group is neither an organisation nor an incorporated body, just a group of individuals, there was no one specifically for the tribunal to order to release Sheehan's information.
"It was still worth doing, it was more of a case of that most people don't have the time or resources to go through a big process like this," Sheehan said.
He said it got his hackles up a bit when he first heard about the group in the media several years ago.
"It made me think about all the times I'd missed out on a rental, like you go along and it seems like it went well and then you hear nothing."
By his own admission, Sheehan has had indiscretions with previous landlords in terms of lost keys or being charged a cleaning fee, but nothing he would describe as major.
"I definitely don't believe I belong on any blacklist."
But it's not quite the end of the road legally for Sheehan on this issue.
The tribunal will investigate whether the Bad Tenants Facebook group interfered with his privacy by not responding to his direct request to release information held about him.
In New Zealand, almost every skilled vocation has a disciplinary tribunal overseeing it, from doctors, lawyers, engineers and architects to social workers and even a tribunal that deals with motor vehicle disputes.
Renters United president Geordie Rogers said it was high time we also had one for property managers and landlords.
"There are no professional standards that they have to abide by at the moment," he said.
"Which is astounding when you think about how much impact they have over people's lives."
Rogers said that landlords needed to understand their obligations under the Privacy Act and that posting their information on a Facebook group was acting in "bad faith" as well as being illegal.
Renters United has specifically called-out groups like Bad Tenants and others like it on its website and urges anyone who has had their information shared without their permission to make a complaint to the Privacy Commissioner.
A spokesperson for the Privacy Commission said that the tribunal's decision provided useful guidance on the requirements for enforcing an access order.
"We will be reviewing our processes to reflect the tribunal's guidance about naming responsible individuals in an access direction," they said.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.
