PIPA and Your Strata: The Privacy Officer, Records and Security Cameras

A council circulates the monthly package to all owners. On page four is the arrears list: unit numbers, names, and how many months behind each one is. It has been done this way for years, on the reasonable-sounding theory that owners are entitled to know where the money is.

They are entitled to the financial position. They are not automatically entitled to that. *A BC strata corporation is an organization under the Personal Information Protection Act, and PIPA applies to it in full* — including the requirement to appoint a privacy officer, which most councils have never done.

This article is general information about PIPA and the Strata Property Act and is not legal advice. Privacy questions in stratas are fact-specific, and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner publishes guidance worth reading alongside this.

Two statutes, pulling in different directions

The tension that produces most strata privacy problems is structural.

The *Strata Property Act* requires the corporation to keep extensive records and to make them available to owners — minutes, correspondence, financial records, bylaws, contracts. Transparency is a legal obligation.

PIPA* requires organizations to collect, use and disclose personal information only for purposes a reasonable person would consider appropriate, generally with consent, and to protect it.

Both apply at once. Neither cancels the other. The practical resolution is usually disclose the record, but do not create personal information you did not need in the first place — which is why the fix for the arrears problem starts at the drafting stage, not the distribution stage.

Appoint a privacy officer. Actually do it.

PIPA requires every organization to designate one or more individuals responsible for ensuring the organization complies with the Act, and to make that person's contact information available on request.

For a strata that means a named person — commonly a council member, sometimes the strata manager by agreement — recorded in a council minute, with contact details available to anyone who asks. It takes one motion at one meeting. It is also the first thing the Commissioner's office will ask about if a complaint is ever made, and "we did not know we needed one" is a poor opening.

The role is not onerous in a small building: handle access requests, be the point of contact, and be the person who asks "should this be in the minutes" before it is.

What counts as personal information here

More than councils expect. Names and unit numbers together, contact details, arrears and payment history, bylaw complaint and enforcement files, medical or accommodation information, video footage of identifiable people, key fob access logs, tenancy details, and correspondence about individuals.

Some of it is deliberately collected. Much of it accumulates — in minutes, in email threads, in the manager's file — without anyone deciding to collect it.

Minutes: where most breaches are created

Council minutes are the highest-risk document a strata produces, because they are widely distributed and permanently retained.

The working rule: record the decision, not the person. "Council reviewed a bylaw complaint regarding a strata lot and determined to issue a warning letter" carries the governance value. "Council fined Ms. Chen in unit 304 $200 for her dog barking" adds nothing council needs and creates a permanent, circulated record about an identifiable individual.

The same applies to arrears — report the total and the ageing rather than a named list — and emphatically to anything touching health, disability or an accommodation request, which should not appear in general minutes at all. Where a matter genuinely requires named detail, keep it in a separate confidential record rather than the circulated set. What must be included in strata council meeting minutes covers what does have to be there.

There is an enforcement dimension too. Naming an owner in circulated minutes is not a permitted sanction; the Act sets out the process for fines, and public identification is not part of it. See strata bylaw enforcement and fines in BC.

Security cameras, done defensibly

Video surveillance is the strata privacy issue the Commissioner's office sees most, and the guidance is consistent.

Justify it first. Surveillance must address a real, demonstrable problem — not a general wish to feel safer. Minute the problem, the alternatives considered, and why cameras were the proportionate answer. A council that installs cameras after a series of parkade break-ins is on solid ground; a council that installs them because they were on sale is not.

Limit the coverage. Common entrances, parkades, mail rooms, amenity spaces. Not aimed at unit doors, windows, patios or balconies, and never inside washrooms or change rooms.

Post clear signage at every entrance saying that surveillance is in use, the purpose, and who to contact.

Restrict access. Named individuals only, with a record of who viewed footage and why. A live feed on a council member's phone is not a security system; it is a problem.

Retain briefly. Days to a few weeks, on automatic overwrite, unless footage is required for a specific incident.

Write a policy covering all of the above and adopt it by council resolution before the cameras go in.

Two hard limits. Covert surveillance is effectively never acceptable. And a camera pointed at an individual's unit — even to gather evidence of a genuine bylaw breach — is very difficult to justify. Broader security measures are covered in improving building security in a BC strata; most of the effective ones are not cameras.

Access, disclosure and the requests you will get

An owner's records request under the Strata Property Act is answered on the Act's terms and timelines. Where a requested record contains a third party's personal information, the answer is rarely to refuse outright — it is usually to provide the record with unnecessary personal information severed, and to say that you have done so.

An individual's request for their own personal information under PIPA is a different route with its own timeline — generally thirty days, extendable in defined circumstances. People are entitled to know what you hold about them, how it has been used, and to whom it has been disclosed.

Requests from third parties deserve real caution. Realtors, marketers, prospective purchasers, other residents and occasionally people with a personal interest all ask for owner lists and contact details. The strata is not free to hand them over because someone asked politely. Sale-related disclosure runs through the statutory forms — what is a Form B information certificate — not through the manager's address book.

Law enforcement requests should be in writing, and it is entirely reasonable to ask what authority they are made under before releasing footage or records.

Practical safeguards a small strata can actually manage

• Blind-copy any email to the whole ownership. Disclosing every owner's address to every other owner is a breach nobody intends.
• Do not post names on the noticeboard — not for arrears, not for bylaw breaches, not for parking.
• Keep a separate confidential file for enforcement, accommodation and legal matters, distinct from the circulated record set.
• Use strata addresses, not personal ones, for council business, so the corporation's records do not live in four private inboxes.
• Hand over cleanly at turnover. Departing council members return records; they do not keep copies. This is the most commonly ignored item on the list.
• Destroy securely once retention periods pass, and know what those periods are.
• Ask before installing anything that records — cameras, doorbell cameras on common property, fob logging, visitor sign-in with ID.

When it goes wrong

If personal information is disclosed improperly, deal with it the way you would a water leak: contain it, notify the people affected, record what happened and what you changed, and fix the process rather than the person.

An individual who believes a strata has breached PIPA can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC, which can investigate and issue orders. Related conduct can also surface at the Civil Resolution Tribunal as part of a wider dispute — see the CRT and BC strata disputes — particularly where an owner argues they were singled out.

Frequently asked questions

Does PIPA apply to strata corporations in BC? Yes. A strata corporation is an organization under the Personal Information Protection Act and must comply with it, including appointing a privacy officer, limiting collection and disclosure to reasonable purposes, and protecting the information it holds.

Does a BC strata need a privacy officer? Yes. PIPA requires every organization to designate one or more individuals responsible for compliance and to make that contact information available on request. For most stratas that is a named council member or the strata manager by agreement, recorded in a council minute.

Can a strata name owners in arrears in the minutes? It should not. Report the total arrears and the ageing rather than a named list. Owners are entitled to the corporation's financial position; publishing an identifiable owner's payment history to the whole building is a disclosure that is hard to justify under PIPA.

Can a BC strata install security cameras in common areas? Yes, where it is a proportionate response to a demonstrated problem. Coverage should be limited to common areas, signage posted, access restricted and logged, retention short, and a written policy adopted first. Covert surveillance and cameras aimed at individual units are not acceptable.

Who do I complain to about a strata privacy breach in BC? The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC, which investigates PIPA complaints and can issue binding orders. Raise it with the strata's privacy officer first, in writing, as that often resolves it.

Related reading

• What Must Be Included in Strata Council Meeting Minutes in BC
• Your Rights as a Strata Owner in BC
• The Civil Resolution Tribunal: How BC Strata Disputes Actually Get Decided
• Strata Council Code of Conduct in BC
• What Is a Form B Information Certificate in BC?

The Personal Information Protection Act sets the obligations, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC publishes strata-specific guidance including on video surveillance, and the records provisions sit in Part 4 of the Strata Property Act.

Most strata privacy breaches are drafting habits rather than bad intentions. Onehive provides strata management across Metro Vancouver — request a proposal.