Rental applications and AI privacy: what a tenant application gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

A busy rental listing brings dozens of applications, and the property manager has to compare them. Pasting each form into ChatGPT or Claude to summarise income, rank the applicants or draft the reply looks like a fast way through. The form is also one of the most personal documents an agency collects: identity documents, birth dates, employers, bank statements, the previous landlord, a guarantor and often a reason for moving that the applicant never expected to share. This page marks every item in a routine NSW tenant application and shows how the same form is handled on Ermos inside the agency.

The rental application form

Completed by each prospective tenant for a listed rental. NSW Fair Trading’s guidance says agents and landlords should only use information reasonably necessary to assess a tenant’s suitability, and should explain why information is collected and how it will be used. NSW Parliament passed a Bill in September 2026 that will require a standard rental application form, expected to start in early 2027.

Residential tenancy application
2/18 Mallee Street, Lewisham · $690 per week · Wattlebird Property · received 26 October 2026

Applicants	Hannah Louise Moretti, born 3 June 1994, NSW driver licence 00000000 (placeholder). Callum James Reid, born 21 February 1992, passport PA0000000 (placeholder).¹
Contact	04xx xxx 411 and 04xx xxx 412 · hannah.moretti@example.com · current address 9/40 Rosella Street, Dulwich Hill NSW 2203²
Employment and income	Hannah: veterinary nurse, Harlow Veterinary Group, $84,000 a year, permanent. Callum: contract graphic designer, $61,000 a year, contract to March 2027.³
Savings and bank	Joint account balance $14,820. Three months of statements attached, with Callum’s gambling transactions one weekend in September highlighted by Hannah as “a one-off”.⁴
Rental history	9/40 Rosella Street since February 2023. Managing agent: Brightwater Property, contact Tess Olawale, 04xx xxx 413. Landlord is selling and has given notice.⁵
Guarantor	Rosa Moretti (Hannah’s mother), 14 Cypress Avenue, Five Dock, income $52,000 a year, owns her home.⁶
Household	Hannah, Callum and Hannah’s daughter Ivy (4), who attends Rosella Street Early Learning. One cat, Biscuit, desexed.⁷
Anything else we should know	Callum is recovering from a back injury and is on workers compensation payments until January. Hannah has an apprehended violence order against her former partner and would prefer a unit away from Dulwich Hill.⁸
Declaration	I declare the information is true and I authorise the agent to check my references, employment and any tenancy database.⁹

An invented rental application. Identity and licence numbers are placeholders and the telephone numbers and email address are not real. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the agency

Names, birth dates and identity documents

Two complete identities with the numbers used to verify them. Personal information, and the material identity theft is built from. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Two complete identities transmitted, generally offshore on personal plans
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Contact details and current address

Mobiles, an email address and where the family lives now. Personal information that is useful for impersonation and phishing. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Two applicants’ contact details and address transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Employers and income

Named employers, salaries and the end date of a contract. Financial and employment information that NSW Fair Trading says should be used only so far as it is reasonably necessary to assess suitability. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Employers and income transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Savings and bank statements

A balance and three months of transactions, including a comment about gambling. Everything an applicant spent money on, collected to judge whether they can pay rent. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Three months of bank transactions transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Rental history and a referee

The previous address, the managing agent and a named contact there. A third party’s details, and the applicants’ own history with a landlord who is selling. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A referee’s details transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

A guarantor

A parent’s name, address, income and home ownership. Personal and financial information about someone who is not applying and has not agreed to be shared. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A guarantor’s details transmitted without her knowledge
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

The household, a child and a pet

A four-year-old, her early learning centre and the cat. Information about a child, and where the child is on weekdays. Privacy Act guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	A child’s details and school transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance in Australia; leaves only inside a permitted excerpt, per question, to the named provider
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

Health and personal circumstances

An injury, workers compensation payments and an apprehended violence order against a former partner. Health information is sensitive information under the Privacy Act where the Act applies, and the order could endanger someone if it reached the wrong person. Patient data guide.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Sensitive information and a safety risk transmitted
Ermos Edge	Stays on your instance; a permitted excerpt may go to the named Australian provider, which keeps nothing
Ermos Dominion	Stays on the unit in your office

9
The declaration and consent
Standard wording asking the applicant to authorise reference and tenancy database checks. It holds no personal data until the applicant fills it in.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Generic wording with no personal data in it
Ermos Edge	Not about where data goes
Ermos Dominion	Not about where data goes

What happens in Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)

The whole document is transmitted to the provider’s servers. On personal plans the user cannot choose where it is stored or processed, and for the major providers that has generally meant outside Australia, under that country’s legal process. Some business plans offer storage in Australia, but the provider still receives the content.
On consumer tiers, prompts can be retained and used to train future models.
The provider’s staff and systems can reach the content under the provider’s own policies.
Once sent, the agency no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Ermos Dominion

The document is drafted on a unit in your office, from your own templates and the property file. Every marked item stays on the unit, which keeps working with the internet switched off. Nothing in it is transmitted to an AI provider, so there is no disclosure to analyse: the confidentiality work is the same as for your file server.

Ermos Edge

Your documents, the index and your access boundaries stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre. When a staff member asks for this draft, only their question and the excerpts they are permitted to see go to a named Australian provider, who is contractually barred from keeping the content or training any model on it. Nothing is processed outside Australia.

	Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)	Ermos Edge	Ermos Dominion
Where the document is processed	Provider servers, generally offshore on personal plans	Your instance in an Australian data centre; answers generated in Australia	The unit in your office
Who can read it	Provider staff and systems, under policy	Your staff, within the boundaries you set. The named Australian provider processes only permitted excerpts, under contract, and keeps nothing	Your staff only
Is it kept	On the provider’s terms	Kept on your instance; the provider is barred from retaining it	Stays on the unit
Can it train a model	On consumer tiers, yes	No, by contract	Only your own unit learns from it, on your hardware

Part of AI data leakage in real estate agencies.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in a rental application form?

Everything pasted from the form is sent to the AI company's servers and processed there to produce a reply. As at October 2026, whether a conversation on a personal plan (ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro; Claude Free, Pro or Max) can be used to train the models depends on a setting each user controls. Business plans (ChatGPT Business and Enterprise, Claude Team and Enterprise) and the developer APIs sit under commercial terms, and OpenAI and Anthropic each say they do not train on that content by default (OpenAI, Anthropic). On either product, the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons can send a whole conversation back for training. This form holds two applicants' birth dates and identity numbers, three months of bank statements, a guarantor's income and an apprehended violence order against a former partner.

Is it safe to paste a rental application form into ChatGPT or Claude if we remove the names?

No, because the form identifies the applicants without their names. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recommends in its guidance on commercially available AI products that organisations do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools, because of the significant and complex privacy risks. A birth date, an employer, a salary, a guarantor's address and a child's early learning centre are enough to point to one household. Removing names rarely makes a document anonymous. Information stays personal information while the person is reasonably identifiable, and the OAIC warns that information can be at risk of re-identification even when it has been de-identified or anonymised.

What if staff use their own ChatGPT or Claude account for a rental application form?

The agency cannot see or manage what was sent from a personal account. On a personal plan the user cannot choose where conversations are stored or processed. Some business plans let an organisation choose to store data at rest in Australia (OpenAI), which still leaves the content with the AI company. Both companies can also review content that is flagged for safety or policy reasons. A property manager sorting dozens of applications on a personal login could send every applicant's identity documents, bank statements and referees' details with no record at the agency. The applicants, and the guarantor who has not agreed to be shared, would have no say in it.

How can a real estate agency use AI for a rental application form without sending it to ChatGPT or Claude?

Ermos is built so the document stays under your control. On the Dominion AI unit it is drafted inside your office and none of it is sent to an AI provider. On Ermos Edge your documents and index stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre, and only the question and the excerpts the user is permitted to see go to a named Australian provider that is contractually barred from keeping them or training any model on them. The draft summary of each applicant is produced from the applications on file and the agency's own records. The property manager checks it against the documents supplied and signs it off.

What can an agent ask for on a NSW rental application?

NSW Fair Trading's guidance says agents and landlords should only use information that is reasonably necessary to assess whether a tenant can pay the rent and look after the property. It adds that agents should explain why information is being collected and how it will be used. It also says information from social media is unlikely to have any bearing on that assessment.

Can a tenant be listed on a tenancy database?

Only in limited cases. NSW Fair Trading says a tenant can be listed only after the tenancy has ended, only if named on the agreement, and only for a debt over the bond or a Tribunal termination order. The tenant must be told in writing and given at least 14 days to respond. These rules sit in Part 11 of the Residential Tenancies Act 2010.

Does the Privacy Act apply to rental applications?

Fair Trading's guidance points agents to the Australian Privacy Principles, which apply to businesses that handle personal information. The OAIC says most small businesses with turnover of $3 million or less are outside the Act, but an operator of a residential tenancy database is covered whatever its turnover. An agency should check its own position.

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