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But here in Austria all hosts have to register their guests, whether you are a private renter or a commercial renter.
We have to keep this data for 3 years, and are checked by an officer of the municipality every 6 months.
Local laws are very advanced because STR / Private rentals are nothing new, they already exist for more than a century.
So AirBnB does not have a big impact in this country, for most people it is just another booking/marketing channel.
I just looked for a US Sate that had similar requirements and that was the first one I came across, my State does not require me to collect such information however I have often thought it would be a good idea.
If I was in that State then I would meet that definition as I rent rooms short term. You do not choose if you want to be classified, you either are or are not, who you use as a booking system is irrelevant.
Obviously it does vary significantly by Country and with the US by State, most legislation in the US is at the State level.
I am familiar with UK and some US requirements and in those areas whether you are a professional organisation (a LLC, LTD, PLC whatever) makes no difference.
But I am sure there are as many variations as there are Countries.
I donât say this often, but this post is almost complete nonsense.
I doubt anyone reading this will take it seriously, but in case anyone is inclined to do so, please donât.
Youâre entirely entitled to check ID and collect relevant information if you want to, for people staying in your property. And you may be required to by law, in any case. Apart from anything else, itâs a standard security measure to take.
And Iâm virtually certain that Airbnb document âverificationâ is a joke.
Whoever you are, please stop giving advice.
Well, I guess that settles it, then. In light of this Twitter âpollâ, Iâll stop collecting information immediately. I wish Iâd known about this valuable data beforehand.
Well dear, without any discrimination but according to your profile, youâre from India. Iâve been many times in Delhi. According to law everything is possible in your country so ID copy/scan/paste thing ⌠well, I donât want to comment. Iâm asking myself why someone from European Union (from UK or France for example) didnât have any complaints about this. I wonât give anyone to check my ID after AirBnb, especially not in INDIA where FAKE ID market and IDENTITY THEFTS are on every corner.
I have yet to stay anywhere in Europe that didnât require that I present my passport and in general, they then photocopied it. It is a requirement, from what I have been told, by local âauthorities.â
And I have yet to stay anywhere in Europe that required my I.D. 8 months moving from Airbnb to Airbnb and not asked for I.D. once.
When Iâve stayed in hotels, including in Europe, they always take I.D. but thatâs different.
Iâd never give a host access to my documents. As a Brit my passport is pretty much the only legal I.D. I have as we donât have I.D. cards. It also has biometric data. No way am I handing that over to anyone.
Why do you think it is different for a hotel? In my country (EU) we are obliged to report each and every of our guests to both police and tourist board via special software. There are regular inspections and if they find someone who is not registered, they will fine me. Also, if something happens to my guests, such as an accident, there will ask them where they are staying and check whether I reported it. Plus, in the case of the citizens coming outside of EU, they can ask the guests to present them with a printed confirmation by a host, so I always hand it to them and warn them about it.
I think this is the case in many EU countries, especially the ones with a long touristic tradition, such as Italy and Greece, just that there are many illegal hosts out there on Airbnb, so this is probably why you never ecountered this.
In the case my guests feel uncomfortable with handing out their documents for 10 min to me (extremely rare case, usually I have to chase them around to return the documents! ), I bring my laptop to their apartment and register them in front of their eyes. But the fact that most people seem to be rather unperplexed by this request tells me that most of them encountered this procedure beforeâŚ
A hotel is different because theyâre regulated by data protection laws. Information they take has to be stored and destroyed a certain way. No offence but I donât trust an individual to protect my personal information the same way, which is why I wonât be handing anything over to you.
So because they are a private individuals you think they do not need to adhere to the same laws?
In the past we also were very lax checking IDâs, but since police started doing âmystery guestsâ and giving fines, we now always check the ID number agains the form they filled.
I do not see what is wrong with checking, if you are who you say you are.
Some countries like the Netherlands do not have a requirement to keep a guest registry, but with how society is changing it will be a requirement at some point in the future.
You wouldnât even agree for me to enter my data into the software in front of you? That is ridiculousâŚAnd also, I donât know why you just donât want to accept the fact that different countries have different regulations, and there are some things that private renters HAVE TO DO. You think I enjoy handling other peopleâs documents? Some countries are just more bureaucratic and we have to handle it somehow.
I worked on the reception of a marina and of a hotel and in both cases âthe dataâ was collected primarily for purpose of doing the same kind of registration that we are obliged to do as small-scale, private renters in my country. At the end of the day we would send all the registrations via email to both police and tourist board. Private renters were taking guestsâ data on a small piece of cardboard and taking it physically to the nearest tourist office. After getting it approved, the guest would get the lower part of the cardboard. Hereâs the photo: http://www.njuskalo.hr/image-w920x690/uredska-oprema/prijava-odjava-turista-turistickoj-zajednici-obrazac-1-slika-60479436.jpg . Nowadays we have the same software as the hotels, camps and marinasâŚ
In the case you would completely refuse to hand me your documents, I and any other legal host in Croatia would have to deny you the stay. Luckily it never happened to me, but I heard this happening to some hosts. Also, we all include it into our house rules, so there is no surprise for the guest. You can always stay with the illegal host, if it makes you feel safer, of course.
I really donât understand why you canât see that your home system with my private information on it is a problem. In this country you have to be background checked against criminal records just to be able to handle this type of data. I donât know you or your wider circle from jack, nor do I know if your storage methods protect my personal data adequately in the case of theft or hacking. No I wouldnât hand it over.
I am perfectly fine with going to the police and showing my documentation there if necessary. Should something go wrong theyâre a public body and can be held accountable.
I really canât understand why you cannot see that exact legal procedures in our countries are outside of hostsâ power and that we have to oblige them, wehether we or you like it or not. âShowing documentationâ to the police is not enough. It has to be in my system as a registered host. Fullstop.
Iâm obliged to keep this data stored for 11 years (!). Silly? Maybe. Legally required? Absolutely!
I really donât feel like paying a hefty fine just because someone is paranoid and didnât inform themselves about the legal requirements of the country of their visit. Itâs easier to lose such a guest. Plus Iâm absolutely positive that Airbnb wouldnât give a shit about your arguments since we are talking about the law, not just someoneâs house rule. They wouldnât return you the money, and neither would I.
This might be the requirement in Croatia as well, I should check that. Luckily I never had such experience in 10 years of hosting + I donât know how many years of hosting by my parents alone.
Also, I just donât understand Zandraâs confidence in the hotel system either. There are shady hotels and shady hotel owners, there is a way to use your data by the employees if they really want it. Luckily, it is usually easy to prove this as everything is on the record so it should be easy to follow the trace in the case of problems (same thing with us as small-scale renters). Plus, regulation from country to country on their policy of data protection. What do you know about Croatian or Austrian policy on it? Maybe itâs not properly regulated, for all you know.
Hotels are publicly listed companies that can be held responsible in the event of failure to follow adequate procedures with regard to personal data. So are public bodies such as the police.
You are an individual with home internet and information unlikely to be properly encrypted. Glad you think identity theft is just me being paranoid. Here identity theft is recorded against your credit report and it counts against you.
The idea that you hold this data for 11 years ?!? Good god no.
We are also publicly listed individuals. There is a whole registration procedure, there is a register of legal renters and I believe we can be held accountable in the case that something happens. If this is unacceptable to you, simply try not to stay with legal hosts when travelling in my country. Or Austria. And probably several other European countries. I donât know what else to tell you. I didnât write those laws. And Iâm certainly not planning to break them over someoneâs opinion on what those laws SHOULD be like. Because that is simply besides the point and anyoneâs power.
Identity theft is real, but I really never ever ever heard of such a case via someone abusing private renterâs data. If this was a real problem it wouldâve probably be regulated further and brought to public attention. I understand if this does not console you, but thatâs just the way it is.
And also, what kind of encryption for document data? Hotel employee can simply access your data later and write it down on a piece of paper. Thereâs no one to physically stop him from doing that, in the same way I can do it if I really want to. This can also be easily traced back to him or me, as I am legally registered renter with a personalized password and profile on the software. When it comes to hacker attacks, it is actually more likely that someone will target a relatively large database of a hotel than my private PC.
I would understand your worries if we would talk about credit cards or something. Credit card payment is largely unavailable to small renters such as myself. In the case someone has it, they are obliged to have the same kind of protection in place as any store, hotel or a restaurant⌠I just donât know what I could even do with your passport data. But maybe Iâm just not being creative enough, ok.
), I bring my laptop to their apartment and register them in front of their eyes. But the fact that most people seem to be rather unperplexed by this request tells me that most of them encountered this procedure beforeâŚ