Interior delays full implementation of decree to collect more data from travelers

The Ministry of the Interior has decided to delay the full implementation of the royal decree requiring hotels, travel agencies and car rental companies to hand over personal information on their clients to the Secretary of State for Security. This requirement would include sensitive data, such as credit card numbers or personal addresses. The tourism sector is on a war footing over a measure that is difficult to apply and also infringes on privacy.

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The new regulation has set against the whole sector, which mainly questions the administrative burden it implies for tourism companies; but it also provokes criticism from experts in data protection, who see in the new regulation an "invasion of privacy".

Last Friday, the Secretary of State for Security held a meeting with the employers' representation of the sector and agreed that the registry will come into operation on the next 2nd;2 December 2024, as planned, but on a partial basis, i.e. not requiring more data than has been collected so far.

Interior sources explain that, from that date, companies must transmit to the application ses.hospedajes “those data already collected on a regular basis in the exercise of its activity ” and contained in the royal decree.

At present, the data that must be collected by those who carry out lodging or vehicle rental activities are a dozen and are contained in the official documents carried by travelers, such as DNI or passport.

Many establishments use an automated system with document readers that go directly to each reservation and generate a file that every night is sent to the authorities, explain industry sources quoted by ElDiario.es. Before these data were sent to the National Police Corps or the Civil Guard and now the new regulation requires them to be transmitted to an application of the Secretary of State for Security.

In addition, Interior has announced that it will prepare a ministerial order "for the further development and implementation of the royal decree" in dialogue with representatives of the sector, according to sources in the department headed by Fernando Grande-Marlaska.

The patronages of travel agencies españolas –Acave, Fetave and UNAV– ensure, however, that the outcome of the meeting with the Ministry of Interior was “totally negative” for them, since the Government announced its intention not to extend the moratorium beyond December 2 and also not to exclude travel agencies from the obligations of the Royal Decree.

The agencies claim that it is “a verbal commitment” and as there is no Ministerial Order limiting the scope of the Royal Decree, they are in a clear position of legal uncertainty, since the obligations continue to be in force.