The Ministry of the Interior has decided to delay the full implementation of the royal decree by which hotels, tourist apartments or car rental companies had to start collecting and handing over to the Secretary of State for Security (SES) almost three times more data on their customers than before, including sensitive information such as credit card and bank account numbers or home addresses. The new regulations anger the tourism industry, which mainly questions the administrative burden it imposes on the sector; But it has also angered data protection experts who view the new regulation as an “attack on privacy”.
This Friday, the Secretary of State for Security held a meeting with the employer representation of the sector – CEOE, hotel companies, digital platforms, travel agencies and tourist accommodation – and agreed that the register would become operational on December 2, 2024. as expected, but partially. Internal sources explain that from this date, companies must transmit to the ses.hospedajes application “the data that they already collect on a regular basis in the exercise of their activity” and which appear in the royal decree . In other words, the obligation to request more data is postponed.
Currently, there are dozens of data that those who carry out accommodation or vehicle rental activities must collect and are included in the official documents that travelers carry, such as the identity card or passport. Many establishments use an automated system with document readers that go directly to each reservation and generate a file that is sent each evening to the authorities, industry sources explain.
Previously, this data was sent to the National Police Corps or the Civil Guard and now the new regulations require that they be transmitted upon request from the Secretary of State for Security. Furthermore, the Interior announced that it would prepare a ministerial decree “for the subsequent development and execution” of the royal decree “in dialogue with representatives of the sector”, detail sources from the department headed by Fernando Grande Marlaska.
The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), which represents more than 16,000 establishments with a total of 1.8 million beds, valued the opening of a “way of collaboration” with the ‘Interior. And he recognized that the meeting concluded “with a unanimous commitment to maintain close collaboration between the sectors concerned and the competent authorities.”
