Holidaymakers visiting Spain will face added scrutiny as new legislation likened to ‘Big Brother’ demands hotels to gather personal data on tourists.
The new rules are set to come into force on Monday, December 2 and will require hotels, travel agencies, car rental firms and accommodation apps to collect detailed data from holidaymakers.
Spanish hotels currently ask guests for their ID cards or passport details but in what is expected to be the strictest rules in the EU, the new decree requires businesses to collect up to 31 pieces of data.
This applies to everyone aged 14 or above and includes the person’s full name, gender, nationality, passport number, date of birth, home address, mobile number and email address.
The information then has to be uploaded onto a platform for sharing with Spanish security forces.
Those under 14 will not need to provide the information, but adults travelling with them must explain the relationship they have with them.
The Spanish government has defended its decision on the new rules, claiming they intend to ‘crackdown on organised crime’.
The country’s leading hotel association, Cehat, however, has hit back against the new rules. The group’s secretary-general Ramón Eestella, said: ‘It’s like “Big Brother” – it’s nuts and will cause chaos.’
Cehat has now launched a legal challenge over the rules. While the group has said it is committed to working with the government in the interest of security, they have concerns over breaching customers’ privacy.
It said the new obligations could breach the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which could result in fines even higher than the proposed 30,000 euros (£25,000) for failing to comply with the decree.
Estelella told The Telegraph that Spain is already the only country in the EU where hotels must send guests’ ID information to the police.
‘Not only could it violate fundamental privacy rights, but it also threatens to complicate and hinder the experience of millions of visitors who choose Spain as a destination,’ Cehat said in a statement.
The group also said it would cause considerable delays for tourists checking into hotels, especially during peak times.
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said in October that the new rules ‘balanced all considerations including both the right to privacy as well as the need to protect the security of society as a whole’.
It follows a year of over-tourism protests across Spain and Europe. In October, the Spanish thousands took to the streets of Madrid to protest extortionate house prices and the impact of holiday rental sites such as Airbnb.
Barcelona has also seen numerous demonstrations this year. In the summer, protesters armed with water pistols demanded ‘tourists go home’, while 22,000 protested in the city in November to demand lower house prices.
Popular holiday spots, such as the Canary Islands, have repeatedly hit out against over-tourism.
In September in Playa de las Americas in Tenerife, for example, protesters appeared on the beach while tourists were sunbathing and chanted: ‘This beach is ours.’
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