viva ticket: privacy, and cultural norms

I am Italian, I have bought opera tickets through Vivaticket several times - till a couple of years ago - and I do not remember such a feature.

Just as there are passports that generate 'NO FLY' responses, maybe there are passports that generate "NO CULTURE". (Tongue is in cheek)

Hmm. I just logged in and pretended to buy some tickets to an event, to see... I now seem to recall the prompting for my passport was not in the purchase process, but rather in the registration process for Viva Ticket. When you sign up for a Viva Ticket account prior to buying something.

Probably want some method of finding you if the credit card was stolen or a fake. I think Europeans are more accustom to carrying identity cards. Papers, please !! Americans seem to get hung up being asked or having identification on them. For examples - how many postings have there been about giving your passport on a hotel reservation via the internet or having to give you passport to the hotel checkin for a period of time. Americans just have a different concept of privacy.

Frank: I have not seen or noticed those other threads, sorry. I tend to lean towards thinking the American impulse of privacy is the one we should all aspire to, and be entitled to.

The site asks your passport number, because in order to create the legal invoice, an identification number is required. In the case of italian customers, the 'codice fiscale', which is a unique number, is asked. In the case of foreigners, the identification number is the passport number. It is asked by law... I work in tourism and we have to do this every day... Don't worry, someone will just put it in the invoice and that's it. Nobody will give a second look.

Unless one is off the grid, what privacy do we actually have (rhetorical question) beyond certain legal rights? Good ol' American privacy has been eroded over the past decades by business as well as government, and many of us happily surrender it to the Internet.

I've never understood this (usually American) reluctance to give out one's passport number to a business during a transaction involving a country that one is/will be visiting. What nefarious thing could they do with it?

So.. my response is that I'm not absolutely sure WHAT someone might do with my passport number, but I have traveled a lot of places, bought a lot of tickets and checked in and out of a lot of hotels - even lived abroad in two countries - and almost nobody ever asked for my passport information except for Customs officials.

Oh wait, one exception: one time I did get my passport inexplicably confiscated by a train engineer, on an overnight train to Rome in 2001. In ITALY. It was given back the following morning prior to arrival with no explanation whatsoever.

Should I expect Italians to ask for this information frequently if I visit for a month ?

You should have to hand over your passport at every place you're staying. They have to register your information with the authorities. Sometimes they keep it overnight, which is why it's always good to have a photocopy of your passport on you on those occasions when you can't have the real thing (which you're required to carry with you).

Michael, I actually can't believe you are saying this. I have never had a hotel ask for my passport -- ever -- anywhere.

Every trip to Europe, and especially Italy we always have to give the hotel our passports to write down the numbers. Some do it right away and you don't leave it and others keep them for a while and give them back. The only place that has not happened is actual private B&B's.

Stayed in small hotel (not B&B) in Siena. Stayed in B&B in Florence, and in Dormitorio per studentesse in Roma. I don't recall if any asked for my passport number, but they certainly did not keep it over night. Only the train conductor in the incident cited above. I was, by the way, travelling with several Austrians who were allowed to keep theirs. We were all very perplexed.

Beginning to think Jt has a short memory. Michael and the others are dead on. Haven't been in a hotel in Europe that didn't ask to see the passport. Prior to the Schengen zone agreement, it was the practice, not common, the practice on night trains for the conductors to take the passports if crossing borders. That way the border guards could check your passport without waking you. And in Italy it has always been the practice of hotels to take passports at check-in. Twenty years ago they keep them overnight so that the night clerk could record the passports in the log during the dead hours of early morning. Now they just make a copy and hand it back to you. But they have a copy that probably just gets tossed in the trash.

I am sorry but your passport number has no value to anyone. So who cares what they do with the number? It has no meaning. It simply ties to your record in the state departments data base.

Frank, I may have a short memory, but there should be no need for a passport number to complete a Visa transaction for a ticket to the opera. And that's not standard anywhere in the world, and there are plenty of corroborating threads that I've now read on this board, suggesting that others have had their passports checked by Italian hotels and not in Germany or France or other countries. Another factor is that in my rather extensive European traveling experience I have mostly stayed in homes, rentals, sublets, or with friends, and rarely in hotels - but I stand by my recollections as I think they are accurate.

Perhaps you chose hotels which prefered to work outside the system and hide their income.

A law is a law. Occasionally you will find people who need to, for whatever reason, avoid their responsibilities.

Perhaps you have perfect memory.

I always stay at places with reputations to keep up. I have always had my passport details taken. And I'm English.

Everywhere has its own cultural peculiarities. Some people find giving their passport details in Europe an 'infringement' on their privacy. I could give plenty of examples of things in the US that Europeans consider to be far more harmful than handing over a passport number.

"Everywhere has its own cultural peculiarities."

Yes, that's precisely what I mean (re-read my subject header). There are plenty of US norms that Europeans would find baffling and insulting, and they would not necessarily be wrong. This occurs to me every time a US waiter takes my plate away while I'm still chewing the last bite.

I find it odd how people in this forum, in general, respond to a post like my original one. Not all questions about cultural differences indicate that the person is a chauvinist, or an inflexible traveler, or an "ugly american". But they certainly all seem that way if you are the self-appointed police of chauvinist ugly americans.

Generally speaking privacy standards are stricter in UE than in USA - and this even without considering possible abuses from US authorities exposed by the Snowden scandal. For example there are many discussions in the UE about US authorities asking for personal data of travelers flying to USA; not only their name and passport number, that would be more than justified, but also things like dietary preferences (like you asked for a vegetarian lunch on board instead of a standard one).

Privacy laws in EU are quite strict and uniform as all derive from a standard EU regulation, and I can tell you can make them work.

I understand that - certainly wouldn't claim the opposite. Here in NYC, it is technically possible for one to be arrested by the police for not having ID on one's person. I'm not at all ok with that. I'm reasonably Ok with giving my passport # to a hotel clerk - even if I STILL think it's overkill - but I do not intend to surrender my passport to any hotel clerk overnight, and I doubt it will be necessary.

"Americans have a different concept of privacy"
Frank says.
He's right.
Americans don't believe in it. In fact they have fewer protection than Europeans.
If you want to know how much privacy Americans have go to the following Websites and try to enter your name:
www.spokeo.com
www.zabasearch.com
www.peoplefinders.com
www.intelius.com
and many others I could add.
You will discover information about yourself you didn't even know, and probably even more you could imagine if you are willing to pay a few extra bucks for the service (only some of it is available for free). From addresses, present and past, to telephone numbers to background checks to credit reports to dates of birth, to names of relatives, including former spouses, value of property owned, mortgage amount, you name it.
That information, believe it or not, is public and available to anybody, including potential stalkers.
There is no equivalent in the EU that I know of.

Under Italian laws, the hotel clerk has to see your passport (and probably making a copy would be the right thing to do) as an old antiterrorism law states that any person hosting another person has to identify his/her guest and file a police report within 48 hours. If the clerk needs a whole night to do this job - for example, because 100 persons have arrived all at the same time, this is an organizational problem of the hotel and not a law requirement. Usually if you tell that you need your passport quickly you are likely to be dealt with minimal waiting.

Of course, I can foresee the police reports accumulating in police offices and being quickly forgotten - unless something happens.

If you're violently opposed to handing over your passport overnight, all the more reason to take along a photocopy. Hand them the photocopy instead of the real thing.