Richard Sil­ver – Toronto Sun

As you may have heard, the Com­pe­ti­tion Bureau is tak­ing action that would force the Toronto Real Estate Board to aban­don the safe­guards in the MLS Sys­tem and make per­sonal infor­ma­tion freely avail­able on the Inter­net, such as per­sonal finan­cial infor­ma­tion includ­ing mort­gage details and much more.

Some infor­ma­tion on MLS is pub­licly avail­able through www​.real​tor​.ca. How­ever, TREB safe­guards pri­vate and per­sonal infor­ma­tion. Real­tors have always been guided by an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect con­sumers’ per­sonal information.

That’s why TREB and Real­tor Mem­bers are fight­ing for the pri­vacy rights of con­sumers! We’ve launched a cam­paign to stand up for GTA con­sumers to pro­tect their privacy.

TREB under­stands that the busi­ness envi­ron­ment is chang­ing. In response, TREB devel­oped a VOW ser­vice to allow Real­tors to offer con­sumers a secure password-protected web­site dis­play­ing MLS list­ing data, with the ben­e­fit of a Real­tor Member’s knowl­edge and account­abil­ity, with­out com­pro­mis­ing MLS accu­racy or con­sumers’ pri­vacy rights.

TREB recently com­mis­sioned a poll of Ontar­i­ans by Angus Reid Crit­i­cal Vision to see what Ontar­i­ans think about aban­don­ing the pri­vacy safe­guards of MLS. I’d like to share the results with you.

Not sur­pris­ingly, Ontar­i­ans are concerned.

* 75% of Ontar­i­ans believe that per­sonal infor­ma­tion such as name and final sale price should be kept con­fi­den­tial by Real­tor pro­fes­sion­als. Com­mis­sioner Aitken wants to release this information.

* 70% of home­own­ers do not want their per­sonal con­tact infor­ma­tion released to the pub­lic. Com­mis­sioner Aitken wants to release this information.

* 67% of Ontar­i­ans oppose any mea­sure to make per­sonal con­tact infor­ma­tion such as name and address avail­able to oth­ers who are not sub­ject to a pro­fes­sional code of con­duct. Com­mis­sioner Aitken wants to release this information.

TREB has launched a new web­site to draw atten­tion and clar­ify for con­sumers as to what could hap­pen if Com­mis­sioner Aitken gets her way.

To learn more, become involved, and stay informed on this issue visit www​.Pro​tec​tY​our​Pri​vacy​.ca

Through­out the cam­paign, lead­ing up to the Com­pe­ti­tion Tri­bunal pro­ceed­ings this fall, TREB will be updat­ing the con­sumer on a reg­u­lar basis, so check back with the web­site for up-to-date information.

The stakes are high; Ontar­i­ans have over­whelm­ing said they want their pri­vacy pro­tected. TREB has always strongly believed that Real­tors have an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect con­sumers’ per­sonal infor­ma­tion. That’s why we’re fight­ing the Com­pe­ti­tion Bureau.

If Com­mis­sioner Aitken gets her way, Ontar­i­ans won’t. Pri­vacy mat­ters. That’s why TREB is stand­ing up for GTA consumers.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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