Email notification security

Landlord Discussion
1

Hi ive just received my third rent collection. All is going well & I’m very happy with the service.
My only concern is that my sort code & full bank account number are included in the notification email as well as the property address.
Banks would never include this much information in an email as you don’t know who has access to it, ever used the “Mark as unread” on your own Email?
Any chance you could hide most of the account number.

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2

Hi Stuart,

Great to hear you like our rent collection service!

When designing this service, we decided to include bank account details on these emails as a handy reminder of which bank account you asked us to use.

You make a fair point though, and you’d still get the benefit even if part of the details were obscured. I will pass on your feedback and suggest we update the email format as part of our future product improvements.

Thanks,
Simon

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3

Surprised and a worried that you would include this info. It’s a really basic security principle to only include info that’s really necessary before you consider what protection to put in place. Email is like a postcard, you don’t know who’s read it before you. Your web advisors should know this.

Glad I don’t use your rent collection service. You ought to audit the rest of your systems if you make mistakes like this.

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4

Hi Open rent
why don’t you just reference the last 4 digits of an account most banks and companies do this.

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5

That’s breaching data protection id say and I would change the bank straight away you don’t know these people and in my experience sometimes things can change which leaves u vulnerable it’s all about protecting the tenant now and sod the landlord- beware of your own protection

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6

I agree. Its not just breaching data protection, it’s totally disregarding it.

8

Hi Simon
That would make things much safer & as Suzy1 says you must be breaching data protection at the moment.

9

Thanks everyone for your feedback on this.

User feedback is really important to us at OpenRent, and helps shape the services we offer. We’ll also listen to your feedback when you tell us something isn’t working quite right.

Following your feedback, I’m pleased to advise we have made a change to the notification emails for our rent collection service, so that only the last 4 digits of the bank account number are displayed.

We believe this strikes the right balance between convenience (to remind which bank account you asked us to use), and security (by not displaying the full details over email).

Thanks again!
Simon

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10

Thanks Simon that’s reassuring, keep up the good work.

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11

Yes quite right you can’t go displaying bank ac info online and expect everyone to be okay with it. :+1:

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12

I have tried your rent collection service for the first time this month and been very happy with the results. I am hoping that one of the benefits of using it is that you can communicate clearly and fairly with tenants coming to the end of their tenancy exactly how much notice they are required to give if any. This always seems a grey area.

13

Hi Anthony, thanks for your feedback on our rent collection service! Glad you’re finding it useful.

Yes, one of the benefits of using Rent Now is that all parties can clearly see the amount of notice that a tenant is required to give to terminate the tenancy. This will be stated in the tenancy agreement which the landlord or tenant can access via their OpenRent dashboard.

Sam