Spanish hoteliers welcome “illegal” photocopying of guest ID clarification

Even the police claim to be confused

Cehat, which warns that photocopying ID cards is illegal, points out that the royal decree is still pending legislative development | Photo: Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter

Humphrey CarterPalma19/06/2025 14:49

The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (Cehat) has welcomed the statement from the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) informing that accommodation providers are not allowed to request a copy of their customers’ ID cards or passports, although they stress that the problem with Royal Decree 933/2021 - the new register of travellers - is ‘broader’.

Cehat, which warns that photocopying ID cards is illegal, points out that the royal decree is still pending legislative development, but that its application is generating ‘multiple conflicts’ with data protection regulations, as well as confusion among police forces.

The hotel association asserts that ‘ultimate responsibility’ for these problems lies with the ‘deficient regulation’ of the royal decree and the ‘lack of a clear and uniform system’ that would allow establishments to comply with legal requirements without risk. ‘We cannot allow a busload of tourists who have just arrived at a hotel to have to wait and fill out a form with such a cumbersome process and so much information as if they were applying for a visa to the United States,’ said Cehat president Jorge Marichal in a press release.

Marichal points out that there are document readers that guarantee ‘efficiency and security’ and adds that Segittur should have rolled out a single system for the whole country instead of fragmenting resources across multiple tourism projects with ‘dubious real impact on the sector’.

Among the ‘critical’ problems that Cehat identifies in the regulation are its ‘collision’ with data protection regulations, the impossibility of verifying the accuracy of the data, the absence of harmonised digital solutions and the contradictions between the obligation to keep data for three years and the principle of minimisation.

It is therefore calling for an institutional dialogue between the Ministries of the Interior and Tourism, together with industry associations, so that the regulation can be interpreted in a uniform manner, a ‘single, interoperable and secure’ national technological tool can be developed, and hotels can be prevented from assuming criminal or administrative liability due to ‘lack of legal or technical support’.

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2 comments

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Morgan Williams | 23 days ago

Total contradiction has always been the norm with there tourist "registration" schemes. The "old" Guardia Civil registration system *required* that copied of the IDs of tourists be kept for at least 5 years. I was told by the guardia in no uncertain terms, that if we were audited and failed to produce copies of the IDs of past guests, we could be fined up to 1000€. In fact, I think I may still have that in writing. I remember at the time of signing up, questioning the guardia officer about the legality of that, considering EU data protection laws, and he just said, "it's Spanish law, not EU law". This new system (apparently) doesn't require retaining copies of IDs, but the larger amount of data requires either making a copy of their IDs and entering the data later, or sitting at least 5-8 minutes with each guest, entering all of their data into the database. Few guests will tolerate that, and there's other circumstances too, like 2 of their party arriving at 11:00, 2 arriving at 13:00, and 2 more arriving at 18:00. That makes it especially cumbersome to collect this data without them just sending photos of their IDs, which is apparently illegal. So, I'm going to have to print sheets that each guest has to fill out and return to me. I hate to burden the guests with that, and we'll see how many ever bother - or if they even put in the correct data. Then, if they don't, by law, I'll have to keep after them until they do... which is surely going to appear petty and irritating to them when they've just arrived on holiday. The whole thing is just a big pain in the arse.

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Burgundy Blue | 23 days ago

“We cannot allow a busload of tourists who have just arrived at a hotel to have to wait and fill out a form.” Why not? I doubt there are many hotels in the world where you don’t have to do this.