Spain has introduced new rules requiring real estate and car rental companies to collect more personal data about their customers, sparking privacy concerns and complaints about excessive bureaucracy.
The new system that came into effect on Monday requires hotels, campsites and other accommodations, as well as travel and car rental agencies to provide “specific” information about their customers to the government through a digital platform.
The goal is to strengthen security and the “fight against terrorism and organized crime,” the interior ministry said. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to 30,000 euros ($31,500), it added.
Hotels and other tourist facilities were already required to give the authorities the name, email and passport number of their customers, but now they are required to collect much more information such as date of birth, phone number and payment method.
Many tourism sector bodies consider the requirements excessive. They complain that they have to collect more than 40 pieces of information about their customers when it comes to accommodation, and over 60 when it comes to car rentals.
“We are faced with an unfortunate and incomprehensible regulation,” the president of the Spanish Tourist Board, Juan Molas, said in a statement.
The Confederation of Spanish Hoteliers and Tourist Accommodation (CEHAT) said it was concerned about the impact on its members’ businesses and was considering legal action to challenge the rules.
“People’s private lives are not respected,” the body’s secretary general, Ramon Estalella, said in a video message.
“To look for that data, to transfer that data, to store it for three years, we think it’s a big risk for all intents and purposes, especially for the protection of personal data,” he added.
The Spanish Confederation of Travel Agencies (CEAV) warned in a letter to the tourism and interior ministers that a “disproportionate rule” could scare away tourists, adding that many companies could not afford the costs of the system.
The new rules were due to come into force on October 1, but the government pushed back the date to give the industry more time to prepare.
Spain is the second most visited country in the world after France, with a record 85.1 million foreign visitors in 2023. The sector accounts for 12.8 percent of the country’s economy.
