Airbnb giving our private information to third parties

[Chris1537]

The other day Aibnb requested that I urgently provide them with my full name, date of birth and address or they will no longer be able to process my payments.
I suspect they made the same request of all Airbnb hosts.

I thought it odd as I'm pretty sure they already have this information.

I queried why they were asking for this and they informed me of the following.

" Airbnb partners with various third-party payment processors to assist us in transferring payouts to your bank account. "

I don't know who these third parties are or how many of them there are but I'm not sure that there isn't some breech in privacy rights with them giving our personal information to third parties without our aurthorisation or knowledge.

I'm curious if this request was made of all hosts and whether you are aware that they are giving it to third parties.

I'm also keen to know if Privacy laws are being broken by them doing this.

[Lisa723]

@Chris1537 I have not received this.

[Michelle53]

@Chris1537    My guess would be that Airbnb is partnering with a company that handles payment processing in your country, and that your in-country payment processor, whoever that might be, needs to know that information in order to send you your money.

You might want to try and find out who that payment processor partner is, and see what their rules are. 

[Chris1537]

That is pretty much the case but Airbnb should not just be handing it over without informing us.

[Emiel1]

@Chris1537 

There is a privacy pollcy:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2855/privacy-policy

[Anonymous]

@Chris1537   Can you verify that the email genuinely came from Airbnb? 

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/971/how-do-i-know-if-an-email-or-website-is-really-from-airbnb

[Chris1537]

It wasn't an email. It came to my inbox on the Airbnb website.
I asked them directly "Is Airbnb in breech of Australian Privacy laws by providing my personal information to third parties?"

And the response was "Not that I am aware of."

So in other words, they don't know.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Chris1537 It is highly likely that the data is used for anti money laundering legislation compliance. It is all allowed for per the terms you agree to (but don't read) when you join the site

[Chris1537]

Possibly so but weeks on Airbnb cannot tell me if they are acting in accordance with Australian privacy laws.
They stopped responding to my question and I phoned them two days ago. They still haven't gotten back to me.

Now they have deleted my payout method without even mentioning it to me.

These people are incredibly unprofessional.

[Chris1537]

So the latest on this.

After two weeks of me asking Airbnb's if their policies are in accordance with the Australian Privacy Laws and their refusal to answer and then having them deactivating my payout method and telling me I have to ad a new one. They finally came back today to tell me that their payment processor does NOT need the information they were requesting and they have reinstated my payout method.
They still have not told me if their policies are inline with the relevant Privacy Laws....

[Helen427]

How are you getting on with this and hosting @Chris1537 ?

Australia and New Zealand Finance Institutions are having a few challenges we see in the media including with their compliance with AML.

This is an excellent topic we all must be mindful of and ensuring ABB Customer Support, IT Teams who create these Templates online that are clearly copy and pasted from a standard form without 'Options' we all had prior to Data Entry / AI systems been thrust upon us Humans, are educated in and to comply with our Jurisdictions and Data Protection rights.

It's noted that proposed AI Legislation states there must be a Human Element to it.

It's concerning how easily one person can mess up our Payments through their access to our what should be secure accounts.

Did you ever find out who the person was who interfered with your Payment details?

It should be noted in ABB systems as required by Law who is accessing our files.

[Helen744]

@Chris1537 Australian banks seem to be asking for a lot of extra ID at the moment . They say its in order to prevent fraudulent charges to accounts.They will investigate where monies are coming from and savings over ten thousand dollars . I think its to protect themselves from loss... H