Video Surveillance in Hotels: How to Protect Guests' Privacy? What Does The Legislation Say?

CHICAGO - Jan. 12, 2020 - PRLog -- Hotels and hotels, but also tourist villages, are places where video surveillance cameras are a necessity because they contribute to a more efficient management of the structure, protecting guests and workers. The tools to ensure security in hotels are varied and serve to prevent aggression, theft and damage to buildings, protect the staff and make customers' stay more peaceful.

The legislation for video surveillance in hotels: Provision of the Guarantor for the protection of privacy

The security camera installation in Chicago is essential, both for large and medium-sized structures and for smaller ones. The internal and external spaces to be monitored are many: restaurant rooms, bars, car parks, common areas or areas dedicated to conferences. These are places characterized by high attendance rates where the risks associated with theft, aggression or vandalism is greater. The objective of a video surveillance camera is therefore threefold: to avoid intrusions by foreign subjects, to avoid damage to the structure and to eliminate risks for customers.

The potential of a video surveillance security system, however, clashes with the obligation, imposed by law, not to violate the privacy of customers and those who work.

The fulfillment's foreseen by the Provision are two:

1.       The first implementation concerns the areas covered by the video surveillance camera. Only people who enter the accommodation and areas of property can be filmed, while the streets, other buildings and passers-by must not be framed.

2.       The second fulfillment concerns the information on privacy that is the obligation to inform about the video surveillance activity in the hotel through a visible sign, in which it must be indicated if the system registers the images. The sign must be placed before entering the area subject to video footage and contain the name of the owner of the accommodation and that of the person in charge of processing the images, that is, those who view and delete them. The filing retention time is a maximum of 24 hours, extendable up to 48 hours, after consulting the Guarantor Authority in the presence of concrete risks.

The legislation for video surveillance in hotels: GDRP (General Data Protection Regulation) 2020 for the protection of personal data

The GDPR is the USA Regulation operational since May 1995, relating to the processing of personal data, which enters into the merits of video surveillance activity through a section dedicated to intelligent cameras, often adopted for hotel security.

The effectiveness of video surveillance in office and hotels, however, depends on the quality of the Security cameras  in Chicago (https://www.getstealth.com/) installed and on the system that connects them, as well as on compliance with the law in terms of privacy and protection of personal data.