Privacy body to look into passport copying
27 August 2009
The Dutch privacy watchdog CPB is to investigate the way many hotels take photocopies of visitors' passports even though it is against the law, the Nederlands Dagblad reports on Thursday.
The paper says some hotels photocopy passports on the request of the police. But while they are supposed to note down the name, type of ID, and arrival and leaving dates, hotels should not take copies of clients'passports, CBP chairman Jacob Kohnstamm told the paper.
Unpublished research by KPMG appears to show many companies are not aware of the rules governing privacy and identity documents, the paper says. And at least 10% of firms do not take proper care of the personal details they have collected, the KPMG research shows.
Privacy experts tell the paper that allowing hotels and other institutions to copy or even keep passports is exposing the owner to identity fraud. 'Most people wrongly assume their details will be looked after properly,' Jos Meekel of corporate investigation group Hoffmann Bedrijsrecherche told the paper.
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