GET A GRIP! Sharing personal data when making a reservation?!
From a legally (!) mandated 1.5-metre distance to sharing personal data when making reservations; do you also get the feeling that the government is using coronavirus as an excuse to exert as much control over us as possible? I find it alarming and no, I don’t want my details to be passed on when I make a reservation somewhere.
‘But you do post on Facebook and Instagram where you’ve been,’ some people say. That’s true: if I’ve eaten and had a great time somewhere, I like sharing that. But I do so voluntarily. That’s not the same as handing over my details at the door.
Invasion of your privacy
The government does want that: our reservation details would have to be passed on to the GGD at the door. For source and contact tracing—and who knows what else. Fortunately, Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) isn’t in favour of this, and rightly so. ‘The privacy and security of storing guests’ data must come first. It must not become a requirement when making a reservation,’ a KHN spokesperson told Misset Horeca. ‘It must not constitute an invasion of privacy.’
Because apart from the hospitality industry: are we soon going to leave our details at the supermarket too? Ikea, DIY stores? All places that, incidentally, are many times busier than the hospitality venues I’ve visited recently. It was eerily quiet there. Now that we’ve all been made so afraid, the atmosphere and heart have been ripped out of the hospitality industry—no matter how hard entrepreneurs try, it still isn’t genuinely enjoyable almost anywhere. Although a large proportion of cafés and restaurants in the Netherlands have now reopened, much of the original sense of joy has once again disappeared for many entrepreneurs. Many entrepreneurs are struggling with maintaining distance, the ‘little performance at the door’ and the reservation requirement. Not to mention having to play police officer constantly in an industry that thrives on hospitality…
Goodbye restrictions, hello freedom!
Instead of yet another measure that raises barriers for the hospitality industry and violates privacy, I advocate lifting restrictions on outdoor terraces and rapidly easing the remaining restrictions for the hospitality industry. And let’s ban the expression ‘the new normal’ while we’re at it. Fuck that. It is far from normal—and the question is whether and when things will become somewhat normal again.
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