Is it safe to let an AI worker handle tenant and landlord data?

Yes, on three conditions: your agency stays in charge of the data, the AI worker sees only what its job needs, and a named person makes every decision about an applicant, a tenant or a landlord. Under UK GDPR, which applies across the UK, the agency that decides why and how personal data is used is its controller, and giving work to an AI worker does not change that. What it adds is a processor to instruct and a contract to put in writing.

What a letting agency holds

A tenancy file is among the most personal files a small business keeps. A referencing application carries an applicant's income, employer and past addresses. In England a right to rent check adds a copy of a passport or a Home Office result. A repair report says who lives in the property, when they are out and what is broken. The landlord's side holds a home address and the bank account the rent is paid to. Applicants hand it over to get a home, and expect you to know who sees it.

What the law asks of the agency

These are duties as the Information Commission's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator, and GOV.UK set them out. How your agency meets them is for you and your own advisers.

• You remain responsible. The ICO says controllers are primarily responsible for overall compliance with UK GDPR, and for being able to demonstrate it.

• A written contract. Whenever a controller uses a processor to handle personal data on its behalf, there must be a written contract. Among other things it must say that the processor acts only on your documented instructions, keeps the data confidential and secure, brings in no sub-processor without your written authorisation, and deletes or returns the data at the end, as you choose.

• Only what is needed, for as long as it is needed. Personal data must be limited to what is necessary for its purpose and kept no longer than that purpose needs.

• Right to rent copies, in England. Whoever carries out the check makes and keeps copies of the documents, records the date, and keeps them for the time the tenant rents and one year after.

• People can ask for their data. A tenant or a landlord can ask for a copy of what you hold on them, verbally or in writing, including through social media, and need not address it to a particular person. The reply is due within one month, which can be extended in some cases.

What an AI worker does with a tenancy file

In a letting agency an AI worker's job is the follow-up: chasing references until they complete, logging repair reports and keeping the tenant updated, watching certificate dates. It has one job, a written specification and a named person who checks its work. The roles are set out on our page for letting agents.

Each of those jobs needs part of the file, not all of it. A role that chases references has no need of the landlord's bank details. A role that books a right to rent check can know that a check is outstanding without holding the passport copy. What a worker may see is written into its specification and agreed with you before it starts.

Three more things hold whatever the role. Every action is logged, so when a tenant asks who has seen their application there is an answer. The worker says it is AI in everything it sends, so nobody discloses something to it believing they are writing to a person. And on storage: Your data is stored in the UK, and is never used to train AI models.

What stays with a named person

• The right to rent check. A person verifies the documents or the Home Office result and signs it off.

• The decision on an applicant. A failed or borderline reference, a request for a guarantor and the recommendation to the landlord go to your lettings manager. The worker reports what came back and what is missing. It does not score people.

• Requests about the data itself. When a tenant asks for a copy of their data, or to have it corrected or deleted, the worker recognises the request and passes it to the person you name. That person decides the reply.

• What a landlord is told about a tenant, and a tenant about a landlord. Routine updates can go in wording you approved in advance, with nobody approving each one, if you choose. Anything beyond it waits for a property manager.

• Notices, arrears action and complaints. Always a person.

What depends on your policies and on the contract

How long you keep a failed applicant's file, what your privacy notice tells applicants and who in the agency may see a landlord's account are your own policies, and an AI worker follows them. Which sub-processors are used, how the data is returned or deleted when the work ends and how quickly you are told of an incident are matters for the written contract.

Questions to ask before an AI worker sees a tenancy file

• Which fields will each role read, and which will it write to?

• Can I see the log of what it did on one tenancy?

• Who are the sub-processors, and will I be asked before one is added?

• What happens to the data on the day the contract ends?

The case for the roles themselves is in scaling a letting agency without hiring.

A letting agency would give the worker the references, the repair reports and the certificate dates, with no more of the tenancy file than that job needs, and its own people would make every decision about a tenant. When a tenant asks who has seen their application, the log answers. Talk to our agent.