rsgrn

Hi, I live in the UK (England) and rent. My current lettings agent inspects the house every 90 days. When doing so, they do not just take photos of damage, they take photographs of every room from the doorway, in high resolution, with a "special app".

Edit extra information: I have a good relationship with them, and have asked them the obvious questions while also posting here. The agents that do it seem to just be doing what they are told, there doesn't seem to be malice. However it is invasive.

My curiosity is peaked every time, as I simply do not understand how this is legal under current data protection measures.

It's not mentioned in the contract, the contract only mentions damage photographs. They do not tell you which app, who creates it, where the photographs go, for how long, if they go to the cloud, or which cloud. Or even which country.

My thoughts are: If you gave me several years of photographs, of every room, every three months I could discern: Political choices. Gender. Age. Sexuality. Interests. Hobbies. Relationship status. Disability status. Approximate income. Field(s) of work. Illnesses. And then how those change over time.

Which is what makes me think "How is this legal?".

Edit extra: Also, are they not risking everything business wise? Giant fines? Rogue employees feeding criminals good targets? I just don't get the logic of it at all from a business perspective.

Thoughts? Thank you.