This seems pretty draconian. I’m surprised there is not more press about this, at least in the US.
Gonna be a pedant here: giving your email, car hire detail, home address and passport # when visiting a country and renting property is not draconian.
Draconian would be being thrown into a pit of shit-smeared spikes for making a minor error on one of those forms.
And another article behind a firewall gave more detail about the amount and type of info to be required. I’m ok with home address, phone number and passport ( that’s been standard for years), but personal bank account info is pretty extreme.
Start of excerpt from article: Travelers to Spain should know about a significant change that will affect them during their visit. The country’s new “big brother” data law went into effect on December 2, despite backlash and criticism. Called Royal Decree 933/2021, the new law requires tourists to share over 40 personal details with hotels and 60 pieces of information with car rentals. Industry experts are concerned that data privacy and personal information may be compromised.
Hotels around the world require guests to disclose basic details such as name, email address, and ID (i.e. a passport). Spain is going a step further by asking for more sensitive information, such as banking details, home addresses, and relationships between travelers. Hotels, rentals, Airbnb, camping sites, car rentals, and tourism operators must collect this data and send it to the government. Minors are not exempt from this requirement, and all data will be stored for three years.
Well, that is more extreme for sure. The bank details are grim, because loose banking (unlike credit cards) details lead to all kinds of scams which prove very difficult to reverse…
I might be inclined to set up a dummy account with my bank with like $10 (or whatever the min balance needs to be) in it just to make sure it wasn’t drained by a low effort scam upon providing bank details if I visit spain.
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Pretty invasive either way but hopefully they don’t ask for the acct number, maybe just bank name and address?
I can’t even think of 60 pieces of information about myself, unless they want my measurements and the name of everyone I’ve ever dated.
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If Spain wants my bank account number, then Spain just lost me as a tourist. Lots of other countries in the world to visit
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When the King and Prime Minister give me their banking info, they can have mine
China could probably provide details if they’re hard to recall.
-Al
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At risk of preventing outrage, they only keep bank details if you pay by bank transfer, which seems pretty unlikely for Americans.
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I’ve done it once for a property we rented directly from the owner. PITA
I’ve had to give passport information everywhere the last couple of years.
I guess the issue now the property owners are required to forward that information to the government.
From what I found, when googling, nothing outrageous, and not drafted by Draco in the least …
Guest entry data required in 2024 (Royal Decree 933/2021) (from accommodation focused industry blog CIVITFUN)
- First name
- First surname
- Second surname (if applies)
- Gender
- ID document number
- Document reference number
- Type of document (DNI, passport, TIE)
- Nationality
- Date of birth
- – Full address (Place of usual residence)
- – City (Place of usual residence)
- – Country (Place of usual residence)
- Landline phone number
- Mobile phone number
- Email address
- Number of travelers
- Relationship between travelers (if any of them is a minor)
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With a different bank, perhaps. Extra degree of separation. Even if it means a higher minimum deposit
……
I’m curious as to the rationale for the banking info. I can see need to verify identity. And perhaps to show sufficient funds for the stay. (Travellers cheques , credit card etc).
Of all of those, it’s perhaps home address that makes me uneasy, as that information, at that moment in time, is more dangerous than it otherwise is.
Landline??
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We were in Spain for 10 days at beginning of December. It wasn’t a big deal - they asked for our passports as usual when traveling in Europe and our home address and email when we checked in. Took a few minutes. Much ado about nothing.
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and likely that many AirBnB/VRBO and other Rental owners wlll have less secure data storage/data transmission capabilities, and unmonitored data retention policies. What do they do with the data after transmission to the government? Data sales (name/address/phone/email) could turn into a side business for some.
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In the frequent flyer world, my friends say Spain can shove it. Please advise when they revert back to normal.
dh
Tell them to stop being dramatic for no reason. I just got to Spain and exactly nothing has changed.
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And they have absolutely zero means of verifying whatever you write in that box. I suspect they will find that Mickey Mouse visits from Anaheim quite often.
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