When Bill Harrington, legal counsel for the Canadian Real Estate Association, recently asked a roomful of several hundred Realtors how many of them had looked at the Association's CD-ROM that explains Canada's new privacy act, only a couple of hands went up. REM Magazine columnist Marty Douglas joked that the CD-ROMs, sent to every member by the association about a year ago, make great drink coasters.

But while many Realtors may not be paying attention to the regulations that will come into effect on January 1, 2004, the new privacy act is going to change the way they do business.

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) provides Canadians with the right of privacy by regulating the way personal information is collected, used and disclosed by private organizations. It's been in place since January 2001 for federally regulated companies in the telecommunications, broadcasting, banking and inter-provincial transportation sectors, but soon it will apply to all businesses that collect personal information -- including Realtors.

The act may change some marketing and networking strategies that have been used by Canadian Realtors for years. For example, most salespeople continually market their services to former clients, encouraging repeat and referral business. They originally collected their clients' names and addresses during the course of helping them buy or sell a house, and now they continue to send newsletters or other marketing material in the hope that those clients will soon be ready to move again.

But after January 1, Realtors can no longer send unsolicited information unless those clients have been notified that it's coming, and given the Realtor their "informed consent" to continue sending it.

Getting that consent isn't too difficult, because PIPEDA recognizes "negative option consent". That means the Realtor can send a letter to everyone in their client base, asking the clients to contact them if they want their name removed from the list. If the Realtor doesn't hear from the client, that counts as consent and the materials can be sent.

From now on, clients must be informed of every piece of personal information that's collected and what it's going to be used for. That means if a Realtor collects information during the course of a sale, and then later sells the list of new homeowners to a third party such as a renovation contractor without the informed consent of the client, it's a violation of the regulations.

Recently Canada Post was reprimanded for selling a list of people who used its mail redirection services to mass marketers, without the explicit permission of the people on the list.

CREA says that salespeople must tell clients "what you're going to do with the information, get their consent to do that, just collect the information you need to do what you said, and then only do with it what you said you were going to do with it."

For brokers, PIPEDA creates more administrative work. Each real estate office must have written privacy policies that outline who in the office is responsible for administering the policy, how the information is collected, and how it is stored. All collected information must be kept safely secured, but it must be accessible for clients to see what information has been collected about them and correct it if necessary.

PIPEDA defines personal information as "information about an identifiable individual" that includes any factual or subjective information. Personal information includes name, address, gender, telephone number, identification numbers, income, blood type, credit records, loan records, existence of a dispute between a consumer and a merchant, and intentions to acquire goods and services. It also covers health or medical history, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, financial information and sexual preferences.

Under the PIPEDA regulations, personal information does not include the name, business title, business address, or business telephone number of any employee -- in other words, information found on a business card. There are also a few exemptions to the rule that an individual's consent must be obtained before personal information can be shared, such as for law enforcement agencies, an emergency situation, and if people's lives are at stake. Personal information collected solely for journalistic, artistic or literary purposes is also exempt.

For more information about PIPEDA, visit www.privacyforbusiness.ic.gc.ca.

Published: November 20, 2003

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Jim Adair is editor of REM: Canada's Real Estate Magazine, a business publication for real estate agents and brokers. He has been writing about Canadian real estate, home building and renovation issues for more than 30 years. You can contact Jim at .