Another new EU mandatory regulation for hotels: General video data regulation creates legal uncertainty Image rights of hotel guests in delicate situations
Brussels / Berlin, April 1, 2019 - Almost unnoticed, the European Parliament passed another regulation between summer time and upload filter votes that will have a massive impact on the hotel industry. The new basic video data regulation is to apply from January 1, 2020 and affects all areas of surveillance cameras and security concepts, including in the hospitality industry. As has only recently become known, a passage in the 143-page ordinance is surprising: According to this, undressed people, who are captured by video cameras in buildings without being noticed, should be able to exercise their rights by being deleted immediately by an EU arbitration board.
https://youtu.be/Quow-k0Unf8
Thus, companies that have such recordings of naked persons will be obliged to report them immediately to the EU Commission via an upload portal, prove that the video files have been deleted immediately and inform the recorded persons of their rights. As is often the case in hotels that guests without clothes accidentally lock themselves out of their hotel room, according to legal experts, this has a direct impact on the previously discrete handling in such difficult situations.
For reasons of legal security, the undressed people must be informed of their rights in front of their hotel room ("immediately"), the positions and angles of all surveillance cameras must be explained to them in detail, and ideally they should be immediately informed of the transfer of the video files and subsequent deletion without gaps. This could result in hotels that cannot provide replacement clothing or bathrobes immediately having to do this to the naked.
The first legal cases are expected from the beginning of 2020 - and corresponding judgments could then provide more clarity and legal certainty for the naked instruction. The fact that this EU regulation, which was referred to as curious on several sides, came into effect on April 1, should not detract from the seriousness of the matter, it is meanwhile from informed circles of the European Parliament. Martin Sonneberg, non-attached MEP, is said to have said in a small group about the consequences of the new EU video regulation: If he did not know better, he would have thought it was an April Fool's joke and best launched it himself.
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