Identity verification for travel and hospitality

What travel and hospitality businesses ask of identity checks

A guest arrives tired, often at night, often from abroad, and the front desk has a queue. Hotels and apartment operators still have to record who stays, and the more of that work moves before arrival, the shorter the queue. Self-service arrival, with a smart lock or a key box and no one at the desk, adds a second job: making sure the person at the door is the person who was checked. Groups, from a tour operator or a wedding party, turn it into hundreds of guests at once.

• Read the passport or other identity document before arrival.
• Offer the check in the guest's language.
• Invite a whole group without handling each guest by hand.
• Match the arriving person to the document when nobody is at the desk.
• Configure how long the record is kept, within the minimum periods that apply to you, and erase it on request.

The flow

1. Invitation. With the booking confirmation your system sends a one-time link. A tour operator creates links for a group, from 1 to 1,000 at once. A guest who opens the link on a laptop can finish on a phone with a QR code.
2. Passport or ID. The guest photographs a passport, national ID card, residence permit or visa. Printed and handwritten text is read, with the MRZ read with checksum, and the document is checked for fraud.
3. Selfie and active liveness. For remote arrival the selfie is matched to the document portrait, and the guest moves the face through two ovals to confirm a live person.
4. Language. The widget shows the guest the steps in one of 29 interface languages.
5. Result. Your property management system reads the session status or receives a webhook, and your own rule decides whether the digital key is released.
6. Record. Retention is a setting you choose per scenario, within the minimum periods and privacy obligations that apply to you. Erasure on request is available by API, with a confirmation webhook and an erasure log.

Modules used

• Document verification: passports, national ID cards, residence permits and visas, with the MRZ read with checksum.
• Face verification and liveness.
• Web SDK and widget: QR hand-off, one-time links and 29 interface languages.
• Webhooks and the REST API.
• Data protection for retention and erasure controls.

Regulatory frame

One example from a primary text: the Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972, made under the Immigration Act 1971 and published on legislation.gov.uk. It is a United Kingdom order, and the text below is the Order as made on 7 November 1972, in operation from 1 January 1973.

• Article 3 provides that the Order applies in the case of any hotel or other premises, whether furnished or unfurnished, where lodging or sleeping accommodation is provided for reward, not being premises that the chief officer of police of the area in which they are situate has attested to be occupied for the purposes of a school, hospital, club or other institution or association.
• Under Article 4(1), every person of or over the age of 16 years who stays at any premises to which the Order applies informs the keeper, on arriving, of his full name and nationality.
• Under Article 4(2), every such person who is an alien also informs the keeper, on arriving, of the number and place of issue of his passport, certificate of registration or other document establishing his identity and nationality, and, on or before departure, of his next destination and, if it is known to him, his full address there.
• Under Article 5, the keeper requires all persons of or over the age of 16 years who stay at the premises to comply with Article 4, and keeps for a period of at least 12 months a record in writing of the date of arrival of every such person and of all information given, and every record is open to inspection by any constable or by any person authorised by the Secretary of State.

This block describes the text, not our service. For information; not legal advice.

Sources

• The Immigration (Hotel Records) Order 1972, Statutory Instrument 1972 No. 1689, legislation.gov.uk, fetched 27 October 2026.

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