What personal information can a real estate agent legally ask for on a rental application?

Q: Can we ask about children, gender, age or relationship status?

Generally no, not as standard fields. Gender and the names and ages of dependants were among the details found not reasonably necessary in IRE . Where occupancy genuinely matters to a property's suitability, ask the question that is actually necessary ("how many people will live at the property?") rather than the demographic question that is not. Privacy law and anti-discrimination law point the same way here: information you should not be deciding on is usually information you should not be collecting. Separate Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws may also apply to how tenancy decisions are made, which is outside the Privacy Act and outside the scope of this answer.

Q: Can we ask a rental applicant for bank statements?

Asking for evidence that an applicant can afford the rent is ordinarily defensible. Asking for full transaction-level bank statements is much harder to defend, because they reveal far more personal information than the affordability question requires. The proportionate approach is to ask for the least revealing document that answers the question: recent payslips, an employment letter, or an accountant's letter for a self-employed applicant. If an applicant volunteers statements, you have collected transaction data you did not need and now have to secure and eventually destroy under APP 11. Where you do accept statements, accept redacted ones and say so on the form, which is a visible signal to applicants that you collect the minimum. Bank statements can also reveal sensitive information as defined in s 6 (for example health-service or membership payments), which attracts the higher APP 3.3 consent standard once you hold it. To be clear about the status of this answer: no determination deals with bank statements by name, but IRE is closer than it first appears. At [95] the Commissioner found the platform could perform its functions while collecting a lesser amount of, among other th

Q: Can we ask about visa or residency status?

Treat it as high risk. Visa expiry was among the application fields the Commissioner found were not reasonably necessary in IRE . Agencies usually justify this by lease term ("we need to know they will be here for twelve months"), but the necessary question is about the applicant's intended tenancy length, not their immigration status. Verifying who someone is and recording their immigration status are different collections with different justifications, and the second rarely follows from the first in a tenancy context.

Q: What does the Act actually require?

APP 3.2 sets the reasonably-necessary limit. APP 3.5 requires collection by lawful and fair means. APP 3.3 adds that sensitive information (health, biometric, criminal record and similar categories defined in s 6) generally needs consent as well as reasonable necessity. APP 3.6 is the direct-collection rule: collect from the individual unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. Separately, if your agency provides AML/CTF designated services on the property sales side from 1 July 2026, some identity collection is required by that regime instead. That is a different legal basis and should be handled and explained separately from tenancy screening.

Only what is reasonably necessary to assess the application. APP 3.2 of the Privacy Act limits collection to information reasonably necessary for one of your functions or activities, so identity, contact details, rental history, referees and evidence of capacity to pay the rent are ordinarily defensible. Questions that merely help you build a profile of the applicant are not.

By Jon Oates, Founder of Privaproof · Last updated 25 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 (from 1 July 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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What does this mean for a real-estate agency?

The practical test is not "would this be useful?" but "could I run this assessment without it?"

In Commissioner Initiated Investigation into IRE Pty Ltd (Privacy) [2026] AICmr 24 (1 April 2026) the Commissioner found the 2Apply / InspectRealEstate application platform breached APP 3.2 by collecting information that was not reasonably necessary, including gender, the names and ages of dependants, and student, bankruptcy and retirement status. A separate finding under APP 3.5 concerned the way the form asked for the information (the first time the Commissioner has assessed online choice architecture under the Privacy Act). That determination is the clearest signal an Australian agency has on where the line sits, and the detail that should worry agencies is that the fields were not exotic. They are the kind most agencies still have on their form today.

The Commissioner listed them:

"gender; details of dependants, specifically names and ages; student status; bankruptcy status; retirement status" · [2026] AICmr 24 at [94]

And on the identity and income documents, at [95] the Commissioner found the platform could have performed its functions while collecting a lesser amount of both.

Audit your application field by field and delete anything you cannot tie to a decision you actually make.

What does "reasonably necessary" actually mean?

It is an objective test, not your own view. The question is whether a reasonable person who understood your business would think the collection was necessary for a function or activity you genuinely carry on. "Helpful", "standard in the industry" and "the form came that way" do not meet it.

The test applies item by item, not to the form as a whole, so a single unnecessary field can be a contravention even when the rest of the form is sound. A workable internal rule is that every field should map to a named decision (can they pay, will they care for the property, are they who they say they are) and to a named person who uses it.

Can we ask about children, gender, age or relationship status?

Generally no, not as standard fields. Gender and the names and ages of dependants were among the details found not reasonably necessary in IRE.

Where occupancy genuinely matters to a property's suitability, ask the question that is actually necessary ("how many people will live at the property?") rather than the demographic question that is not. Privacy law and anti-discrimination law point the same way here: information you should not be deciding on is usually information you should not be collecting. Separate Commonwealth, state and territory anti-discrimination laws may also apply to how tenancy decisions are made, which is outside the Privacy Act and outside the scope of this answer.

Can we ask a rental applicant for bank statements?

Asking for evidence that an applicant can afford the rent is ordinarily defensible. Asking for full transaction-level bank statements is much harder to defend, because they reveal far more personal information than the affordability question requires.

The proportionate approach is to ask for the least revealing document that answers the question: recent payslips, an employment letter, or an accountant's letter for a self-employed applicant. If an applicant volunteers statements, you have collected transaction data you did not need and now have to secure and eventually destroy under APP 11. Where you do accept statements, accept redacted ones and say so on the form, which is a visible signal to applicants that you collect the minimum.

Bank statements can also reveal sensitive information as defined in s 6 (for example health-service or membership payments), which attracts the higher APP 3.3 consent standard once you hold it. To be clear about the status of this answer: no determination deals with bank statements by name, but IRE is closer than it first appears. At [95] the Commissioner found the platform could perform its functions while collecting a lesser amount of, among other things, identification documents and proof of income documents. So the direction of travel on affordability evidence is established even though the specific document is not.

Can we ask about visa or residency status?

Treat it as high risk. Visa expiry was among the application fields the Commissioner found were not reasonably necessary in IRE.

Agencies usually justify this by lease term ("we need to know they will be here for twelve months"), but the necessary question is about the applicant's intended tenancy length, not their immigration status. Verifying who someone is and recording their immigration status are different collections with different justifications, and the second rarely follows from the first in a tenancy context.

What if our renttech platform collects the fields, not us?

The determination was made against the platform operator, not against any agency, but that is no comfort: the agency collects the information, so the agency has to meet APP 3 for every field on its form, whoever built it. The platform having its own obligations does not displace yours.

Ask your provider in writing which fields they have removed or made optional since the IRE determination, and switch off in your own configuration anything you cannot justify. Where the platform allows custom fields, treat every custom field your office has added as your own collection, with no vendor to point at.

What does the Act actually require?

APP 3.2 sets the reasonably-necessary limit. APP 3.5 requires collection by lawful and fair means. APP 3.3 adds that sensitive information (health, biometric, criminal record and similar categories defined in s 6) generally needs consent as well as reasonable necessity. APP 3.6 is the direct-collection rule: collect from the individual unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so.

Separately, if your agency provides AML/CTF designated services on the property sales side from 1 July 2026, some identity collection is required by that regime instead. That is a different legal basis and should be handled and explained separately from tenancy screening.

Sources: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) Sch 1, APP 3 (esp. 3.2, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6) and s 6 · legislation.gov.au · OAIC APP 3 guidelines · IRE Pty Ltd (Privacy) [2026] AICmr 24, AustLII · 7-Eleven Stores [2021] AICmr 50, AustLII.