EFF: New York City Home-Sharing Ordinance Could Create Privacy Nightmare
New York City Home-Sharing Ordinance Could Create Privacy Nightmare Many cities across the country are struggling with issues surrounding short-term vacation rentals and how they affect the availability and price of housing for local residents. However, New York City’s latest ordinance aimed at regulating home-sharing platforms is an extraordinary governmental overreach with invasive privacy ramifications, and EFF is fighting back. The Short-Term Residential Ordinance is aimed at blocking the operation of illegal hotels. It compels services like Airbnb and HomeAway to disclose the names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other personal and financial information of all short-term hosts, along with the number of days their home was rented. That’s not just once, that’s monthly, in perpetuity. Taken all together, this sensitive information it can reveal patterns of home life and vacations, among other private details. Additionally, there are no safeguards in the law...