In accordance with the 2021 Census Law (ZensG 2021, those who own or manage living space are obliged to provide certain information on the apartments they rent. In doing so, they ensure compliance with Regulation (EC) No. 763/2008. As part of their obligation to provide information, they will also have to submit a one-time notification containing the first and last names of up to two residents for the 2021 census of buildings and housing. This “additional auxiliary data” will be used for the statistical generation of households which, in turn, will help to determine which persons live at a certain address and in what conditions (e.g. living space and number of rooms).

When housing companies rent out their properties, they store information about their tenants. This information is usually stored exclusively for the purpose of performing tasks that arise within the scope of the lease (e.g. billing utility costs, arranging for work to be done). The one-time submission of names to the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder in 2021, as required by law, will generally go beyond the usual performance of the lease. From a data protection point of view, this submission can therefore be viewed as a change in the purpose of processing, as the data will then be processed for a purpose other than the one for which it was originally stored. For this reason, tenants must be informed that their data will be passed on to the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder for statistical purposes in accordance with Art. 13 GDPR.

In many cases, however, rental contracts or special agreements concluded since the GDPR entered into force may contain a general clause in which tenants are informed that their data may be disclosed to third parties due to legal obligations. Therefore, please check first whether you have already informed your tenants accordingly. If this is the case, you will not have to provide them with any additional information.

If you are yet to inform your tenants, you can provide the necessary information about the disclosure of names to the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder in 2021 as part of your usual correspondence with tenants (e.g. when you contact them about their next utility bill or another issue). A GDPR-compliant notification for the data transfers in question should contain at least the following information:

• In accordance with the applicable data protection laws, the landlord (name and contact details) is responsible for processing personal data as required within the scope of the lease. Under the 2021 Census Act (ZensG 2021), landlords are obliged to provide the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder with certain details about their tenants for the purpose of conducting the 2021 census. The legal basis for such data transfers is point (c) of Art. 6 (1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in conjunction with Section 10 (2) ZensG 2021. The landlord is legally obliged to submit the following information: the first and last name of up to two persons who use the apartment; and the number of persons who live in the apartment. This information will be sent to the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder, which must observe the specific periods specified in ZensG 2021 for the deletion of the data.

With regard to the information submitted to the Statistical Offices of the Federation and the Länder within the scope of ZensG 2021, tenants may exercise the rights stipulated in Art. 13 to 18, 21 and 77 GDPR against their landlords. In such cases, however, landlords will remain obliged to provide information in accordance with ZensG 2021. Tenants must also be informed about the following:

• If the requirements stipulated in the GDPR are met, tenants may exercise a right of access, a right to rectification, a right to erasure, a right to the restriction of processing and a right to object to data processing against their landlords (Art. 15 to 18 and Art. 21 GDPR). If tenants believe there has been a breach of the data protection regulations, they also have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection supervisory authority regarding the way in which their personal data is being processed by their landlords (Art. 77 GDPR).

If your housing company has appointed a data protection officer, you must also provide your tenants with the relevant contact details.
Please note:

As the landlord, you are personally responsible for ensuring that the personal data belonging to your tenants is processed in compliance with the applicable data protection laws and that they are provided with comprehensive information in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR. The information provided here does not constitute legal advice; it is merely intended to provide assistance with regard to your obligations under the 2021 Census Act.

The same applies to property managers.