Dispute over smoke detectors
Vonovia: Tenants fear surveillance in their apartments
November 6, 2024Reading time: 2 minutes
A dispute between Germany's largest housing company Vonovia and its own tenants threatens to escalate. The reason: a new smoke detector.
There is currently a bad mood among Vonovia's tenants. The housing company is planning to install new smoke detectors. To be more precise: “smart” smoke detectors should be installed that can do more than just warn of smoke. According to Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), Vonovia informed the tenants in advance by post.
The tenants of the affected residential buildings in the Hesse cities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt and Kassel are not enthusiastic about it. Because they fear being monitored by the new smoke detectors, as HR reports.
The Techem brand smoke detectors are advertised as the “smoke detectors of the future”. The sensors react to smoke, heat, excessive humidity and carbon monoxide and transmit this data to external data centers. Vonovia's tenants complain about a possible lack of data protection. According to HR, tenant protection associations from Hesse also agree with these doubts.
However, Vonovia and Techem would assure that the data collected is protected from third-party access and that only hourly average values are stored for a maximum of two days.
In addition to concerns about data protection, tenants see another problem with the new smoke detectors: the price. At 130 euros each, the smart devices are very expensive compared to standard smoke detectors. The housing company wants to pass these costs on to its tenants. After the installation, Vonovia plans to increase the monthly rent by around six euros. This is justified as a modernization measure.
Anyone who refuses to install will face a toleration lawsuit from Vonovia. In the northern Hesse city of Kassel, the housing company carried out this threat. A court case is already pending there, as HR reports.
Vonovia SE is a private housing company headquartered in Bochum. According to its own information, it manages almost 500,000 apartments throughout Germany, making it the largest housing company in the Federal Republic.
