Regulator’s attempt at mining condo owner data called out

An attempt by the Ontario condominium regulator to send emails to every condo owner in the province has raised privacy and ethical concerns with professional property managers and condo law experts.

Every year condominium corporations in Ontario must file an annual return to the Condominium Authority of Ontario. Starting this year, the CAO added a new section to this mandatory filing that asks how each of the more than 12,000 condos keeps track of the email addresses of registered owners. The form goes on to say the “CAO would like to engage directly with all condo owners regarding the information and services that we have developed” and asks managers to check a “Yes” or “No” box to indicate whether they’d like to be contacted by the CAO to “discuss how we might connect with your owners.”