Rule: do not republish sold price + address from MLS without consent. OPC #2009-002 — MLS-sourced ≠ registry-sourced; the "publicly available" exemption fails when the MLS is the source

Rule. Do not republish sold price + address pairs sourced from the MLS without consent.

Why. OPC Case Summary #2009-002 — sold price + address is personal information; pulling from MLS does NOT qualify for "publicly available" consent exemption (decisive against MLS-sourced republication) — OPC interprets the PIPEDA "publicly available" exemption to apply only when the info is actually collected from a publicly available source. Pulling from the MLS does NOT qualify, even though the same information would also be in the land registry. The "it's in the registry anyway" argument does not cure the PIPEDA problem.

How to apply. Any product that displays sold price + address must either (a) get consent through the broker-consumer relationship chain (CREA Privacy Code (in place since 2001) — 10 PIPEDA principles; brokerages must obtain seller/buyer consent for board collection/use/disclosure and produce proof on request), (b) source the data from the land registry directly rather than the MLS, or (c) keep the data sufficiently aggregated to not be "about an identifiable individual." Do not rely on the "publicly available" exemption when the source is the MLS.