The Ministry of the Interior assures that the data provided by tourist agents through the new travelers register made it possible to locate 18,584 people who were the subject of a search and arrest warrant. These are mainly suspected criminals who have been the subject of a police or judicial request as part of procedures linked to terrorism, organized crime or serious delinquency. This was confirmed on Wednesday by sources from the department headed by Fernando Grande Marlaska during a meeting with journalists about this register, which begins to operate on a mandatory basis next Monday, December 2, but has been operational since 2022.
Last October, the Ministry of the Interior decided to delay the full implementation of the royal decree by which hotels, tourist apartments or car rental companies must start collecting and remitting to the Secretary of State for Security (SES) almost three times more data. . of its customers than until now, 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”. The Interior justifies this greater collection of information as a means of combating terrorism and organized crime and emphasizes that “the logistics of accommodation and the acquisition or use of motor vehicles” are of particular importance in the modus operandi of criminals.
The register will come into service next Monday, as planned, but companies will have to 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 . The only new information that will be required from this Monday is the relationship between travelers if one of them is a minor. This is information that the Interior considers “very relevant and essential” in the face of procedures on sexual abuse of minors, kidnappings, etc. Concerning the rest of the new data contained in the royal decree – telephone number , email, among others -, the department will submit for public consultation a ministerial decree which will “facilitate” the requirement of this data.
Until now, the data that those who carry out accommodation or vehicle rental activities must collect are those that appear 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.
This data was sent to the National Police Corps or the Civil Guard and now the new regulations require that it be transmitted to an application of the Secretary of State for Security, called ses.hospedajes. And this is what made it possible to locate the aforementioned 18,584 people who appeared in the national flagging databases or in the Schengen Information System. This application has been active since 2022. Since then, 61,540 hotel establishments, 1,094 travel agencies, 222 digital platforms and 1,720 vehicle rental companies have already provided data.
The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT), which represents more than 16,000 establishments totaling 1.8 million beds, announced that it would take “legal action” as soon as it comes into force of this royal decree. Employers denounce the “lack of answers” from the government and “the negative impact that this regulation will have on the hotel sector and travelers themselves”.
