The European Union's (EU's) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect on May 25, 2018 with a mission to strengthen the protection of individuals' personally identifiable information (PII).

Prior to the GDPR taking effect, HTNG formed a GDPR for Hospitality Workgroup which produced a framework and a self-assessment tool to help the hospitality industry prepare for this new privacy regulation.

Now that the GDPR has been in effect for over a year, the workgroup continued their work to publish an updated white paper. The group went beyond cleaning up and clarifying the output of the first phase by providing guidance regarding data processing agreements, clarity through communicative FAQs and perspective through the creation of a '12-Step Prioritized Approach to Privacy Regulation Compliance.'

This workgroup was led by Co-chairs John Bell of Ajontech, Daniel Johnson of VENZA, Finn Schulz of Schulz Consulting and Richard Sheinis of Hall Booth Smith, P.C.

"The GDPR Workgroup has now been expanded in scope to cover privacy on a global basis, as we see a clear movement toward similar legislation in a number of countries around the world," said Finn Schulz. "HTNG realizes the need for an industry overview of such regulations and maybe even an easy-to-read comparison of similarities and specific variances to look out for."

"The white paper covers a lot of territory and we were conscious to make it reader-friendly," said Daniel Johnson. "I am hopeful the industry will leverage it as something as close to a 'GDPR User Manual' as anything else that's in existence. However, like any user manual, it needs to be cracked open and read to be of value."

The updated GDPR for Hospitality White Paper can be downloaded below.

About Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG)

Part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), HTNG the premier technology solutions association in the hospitality industry, HTNG serves members from hospitality companies, technology vendors to hospitality, consultants, media and academic experts. HTNG's members participate in focused workgroups to bring to market open solution sets addressing specific business problems. HTNG fosters the selection and adoption of existing open standards and also develops new open standards to meet the needs of the global hospitality industry.

Currently more than 400 corporate and individual members from across this spectrum, including world leading hospitality companies and technology vendors, are active HTNG participants. HTNG's Board of Governors, consisting of 22 top IT leaders from hospitality companies around the world, itself has technology responsible for over 3 million guest rooms and world-leading venues. HTNG publishes workgroup proceedings, drafts and specifications for all HTNG members as soon as they are created, encouraging rapid and broad adoption. HTNG releases specifications into the public domain as soon as they are ratified by the workgroups.

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