Tenant databases – the need for strong, national protection for tenants

Tenant databases – sometimes known as 'blacklists' – have operated without effective regulation since the late 1980s. In that time, these private companies have accumulated from landlords and agents hundreds of thousands of listings about tenants.

Tenant databases are a two-fold menace.

First, if you are listed on a tenant database - even if the reason is trivial or wrong - you might find it difficult or impossible to find rental housing. Tenant database listings make people homeless.

Second, the threat of being listed discourages tenants generally from asserting their rights.

Tenant databases are poorly regulated, and cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. We believe that tenant databases do not have a place in a fair rental housing system.

While governments continue to allow tenant databases to operate, we need strong laws that tightly restrict the circumstances in which a person can be listed, and allow listed persons to apply for enforceable orders to remove their information from a tenant database.