Personal data

The definition of personal data in a hotel should be well internalised by the “person in charge” (manager of the hotel). Of course, you can only protect data that you know is personal data in need of protection according to the law.

The simplest definition is: data is personal if a reference to a person can somehow be established via this information or if the respective information refers to a natural person or allows conclusions to be drawn about the personality.

Naturally, therefore, personal data are:

• First name, surname and writing
• Telephone number and e-mail address of a person
• Account or credit card data

Not quite so obviously, however, this information can also be classified as personal data:

• Clicking behaviour or IP address of website visitors
• Login data, if it is linked to an email address or a real name
• Wage data of your employees or information on the economic situation of your guests
• Ethnic and cultural origin, political or religious beliefs
• Health information (including dietary requirements or allergies), sexual preferences

However, typical personal data that a hotelier may only process and store with the permission of the guests are also: name, gender and age of children, photos of guests or staff (especially if these are published on the internet.