Do we need the tenant's consent to photograph an occupied rental?

Entry to photograph is usually the easy part. In Victoria there is an express ground for entering to produce advertising images and videos, on seven days' written notice. The consent duties sit around the images rather than the entry, and they are not the same in every state: in New South Wales and Queensland written consent is required before you publish any interior image showing a tenant's possessions, while Victoria's is conditional on the renter asking first. Victoria then adds a limb the others do not: an image produced for a purpose other than advertising, such as an inspection photo or a condition report, needs written consent before advertising use. Separately, an interior photograph of an occupied home is often personal information under the Privacy Act, because possessions and papers can make the occupant reasonably identifiable once the image is tied to a listed address.

By Jon Oates, Founder of Privaproof · Last updated 31 July 2026 · Start the free 2-min audit →

General information, not legal advice. Your obligations depend on your circumstances.

Does this apply to your agency?

The Privacy Act binds “organisations”. An agency whose annual turnover for the previous financial year was more than A$3 million is one (ss 6C, 6D, 6DA). Turnover is the income the business itself earns in the course of carrying it on, so for an agency that is commission, management and letting fees and referral income. Rent you collect for a landlord and hold in trust is generally the landlord’s money passing through rather than your income, so a large rent roll does not by itself put you near the threshold. If it is close enough to decide the answer, check the figure with your accountant. Note also that once turnover has exceeded A$3 million in a financial year that has ended, the exemption does not return by later dropping below it (s 6D(4)(a)). A smaller agency is generally exempt, but is still covered if any of these apply: it provides AML/CTF designated services, i.e. brokering the sale, purchase or transfer of real estate (since 31 March 2026, for the personal information it handles in connection with those obligations, s 6E(1A)); it is related to a body corporate that is not a small business operator, such as a group or franchise entity (s 6D(9)); it operates a residential tenancy database (s 6E(2)); it is a contracted service provider under a Commonwealth contract (s 6D(4)(e)); it trades in personal information (s 6D(4)(c)–(d), subject to the consent and authorised-by-law carve-outs in s 6D(7)–(8)); or it has opted in (s 6EA). Merely listing a tenant on, or searching, someone else’s database does not automatically make you covered. Work out whether the Privacy Act applies to you. Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) ss 6C, 6D, 6DA, 6E.

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Can we enter the property to take the photographs?

Yes, and this is where most conversations start and stop, which is the problem.

The Victorian Residential Tenancies Act 1997 makes producing advertising images and videos an express ground of entry at s 86(1)(ab), exercisable under s 85(b)(ii) on at least seven days' written notice, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. and not on a public holiday. So entry is not the obstacle. The obligations that actually bite come later, when the images are used.

Sources: Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic), s 89A (entry to produce advertising images and videos), read at source · Consumer Affairs Victoria, renting

Victoria's provision has four limbs, and each is narrower and more conditional than a single "get consent for photos" rule would suggest.

In Victoria the consent-to-publish duty is conditional, not automatic. Under s 89A(4) and (5) it arises where the renter has asked for identifiable or high-value possessions to be excluded and has asked to review the images before they are advertised. Only then is written consent required, and it is not a standing rule for every photograph of an occupied home. Do not carry that reasoning into New South Wales, Queensland or the Northern Territory, where consent is required whether or not the tenant asks.
Re-using an old image needs consent where the image displays a renter's possession. Section 89A(7) bites where you intend to use an advertising image or video showing a renter's possession more than 12 months after it was produced, and the written consent has to come from the renter or former renter. Note the qualifier: it attaches to an image displaying the renter's possession, not to every old photograph in the folder.
⭐ Using a non-advertising image for advertising needs written consent, and this is the one to watch. A photograph taken at a routine inspection, or as part of a condition report, was produced for a different purpose. Putting it into a listing, a social post or a brochure is an advertising use of it, and that requires the renter's written consent. This is the limb a busy office contravenes without noticing, because the photograph is already sitting in the file and using it feels like housekeeping rather than publishing.

Ahead of all three sits a fourth limb: under s 89A(3) and (6) the renter may object in writing to the image being produced at all, where it shows a possession that identifies an occupant, reveals sensitive information or is valuable, or where it may identify someone at risk of family or personal violence. The practical version: keep advertising photography and inspection photography in separate folders, and treat moving an image between them as a decision that needs consent rather than a drag and drop.

Sources: Residential Tenancies Act 1997 (Vic), s 89A, including the limbs at s 89A(3) and (6), (4) and (5), (7) and (8), authorised version 113, read at source · Consumer Affairs Victoria, renting

Does this apply outside Victoria?

No, and the Victorian shape is the one least safe to generalise from, because it is the most conditional. We have now read all eight jurisdictions at source, and they fall into three groups.

New South Wales: under s 55A(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010 it is an offence to publish an interior image in which any of the tenant's possessions are visible without the tenant's written consent, maximum 20 penalty units. Publishing includes a website or an email; passing an image between landlord and agent for an inspection or repairs does not (s 55A(5)).
Queensland: s 203 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 bars using an image of the premises in an advertisement if it shows something belonging to the tenant, without written consent, maximum 20 penalty units.
Northern Territory: s 74A(2) and (4) of the Residential Tenancies Act 1999 need written consent before publishing an image showing an identifying, sensitive or valuable possession, or one that may identify a tenant affected by domestic violence, maximum 20 penalty units. That consent lasts 12 months (s 74A(5)).
Tasmania: s 55A of the Residential Tenancy Act 1997 bars displaying to the public an image of the premises showing any object that may identify the tenant, without written consent, maximum 50 penalty units. It bites on display, not on taking the photograph.
Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT: no photograph-consent provision at all, so the Privacy Act below is doing the work on its own.

One question for your campaign folder: for every live interior image in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania or the Northern Territory that shows something of the tenant's, could you produce the written consent today?

Sources: Residential Tenancies Act 2010 (NSW) s 55A · Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 (Qld) s 203 · Residential Tenancy Act 1997 (Tas) s 55A · Residential Tenancies Act 1999 (NT) s 74A · the WA, SA and ACT Acts, which have no equivalent, each read at source

Is a property photograph personal information at all?

Often yes, and that is a separate question from tenancy law.

The threshold is the definition in section 6 of the Privacy Act 1988: information about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

An empty, unfurnished property usually will not meet it, though "usually" is doing real work here, because an image tied to a listed address may still be about a reasonably identifiable owner.

An occupied home frequently will. Interiors show possessions, correspondence on a bench, children's belongings, photographs on a wall. Paired with an address on a public listing, that is information about the people who live there. Queensland's tenancy Act says it outright: s 457(b) defines personal information to include photographs or images of an individual's personal possessions or standard of living.

⚠️ One step further. Visible medications, health aids or mobility equipment can make an interior image sensitive information, which engages APP 3.3 and its consent requirement. That is a materially different obligation from ordinary collection, and it is easy to walk straight past with a camera in your hand.

Sources: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), section 6 and APP 3, APP 3.3 (Schedule 1) · OAIC APP Guidelines chapters B and 3 · OAIC APP guidelines

What if we send the images offshore for editing or virtual staging?

Where the images are personal information, sending them to an overseas editor is a cross-border disclosure under APP 8, and the editor is an ordinary overseas supplier rather than a production step. APP 8.1 requires reasonable steps to ensure the recipient does not breach the APPs, and where it applies, s 16C treats the recipient's breach as yours.

So: know where they are, contract for it, and disclose overseas disclosure in your privacy policy and collection notices, including the countries where recipients are likely to be located if it is practicable to specify them.

Then reduce what you send:

Photograph occupied homes so that personal effects, documents and photographs are not in frame. That is better marketing anyway.
Strip metadata, and keep tenant names and contact details out of the job brief.
Where images of an occupied home do go offshore, apply the same expectations you would to any other overseas recipient.

Sources: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), APP 1.4(f) and (g), APP 5.2(i) and (j), APP 8 and s 16C (Schedule 1 and Part II) · OAIC APP Guidelines chapter 8 · OAIC APP guidelines · See also overseas disclosure and offshore CRMs

Common questions

Can we re-use last year's photographs for a re-let?

In Victoria, s 89A(7) needs fresh written consent only where the image displays the renter's possession and you intend to use it more than 12 months after it was produced, so one shot exactly a year ago is not yet caught. In New South Wales and Queensland the age of the image is irrelevant. Where the property was empty when it was shot, or nothing of the renter's is visible, none of those limbs is engaged. The safe habit is to record, at the time of the shoot, whether a renter's possessions are in the frame, because working that out two years later from the photograph alone is guesswork.

The tenant never objected, so can we publish?

In Victoria, yes for that one duty: s 89A(4) and (5) are triggered by the renter asking for identifiable or high-value possessions to be excluded and to review the images, so if nobody asked, that duty has not arisen. In New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the Northern Territory the answer is no: consent there does not depend on the tenant objecting, on a maximum of 20 penalty units and 50 in Tasmania. Even in Victoria the other limbs stand on their own, above all the written consent needed before an inspection or condition-report photograph is used in advertising.

Does "keep possessions out of frame" solve this?

It goes further than you might think. The New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmanian and Northern Territory duties, and Victoria's 12-month re-use limb, all turn on something of the tenant's being visible, so an image with nothing of theirs in it engages none of them. It also reduces the Privacy Act exposure, because fewer images are personal information. What it does not touch is Victoria's s 89A(8): an image produced for a purpose other than advertising needs written consent before advertising use whatever is in the frame.

Sources

This is general information, not legal advice. Privaproof provides privacy tools and general information; it is not a law practice and does not provide legal advice. Residential tenancies law differs in every state and territory; the provisions set out above are Victorian, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmanian and Northern Territory, and you should check the Act that applies to you before relying on them. Last reviewed: 31 July 2026.