DPDP Act series
DPDP for hotels: children and family guest data need extra care
Family travel creates useful service data, but children's data should be handled with restraint and clear guardian involvement.
The issue
Hotels and resorts collect children's data in subtle ways: kids club registration, activity waivers, meal preferences, birthday amenities, Wi-Fi access, streaming profiles, family packages, babysitting requests, and emergency contacts.
The DPDP Act treats children as people under 18 and adds obligations around verifiable parental consent and avoiding processing that is detrimental to a child's well-being, including tracking, behavioural monitoring, and targeted advertising.
What hotels should do
Separate family service fulfilment from profiling. A resort may need a child's age bracket for an activity, allergy information for a meal, or guardian contact details for a kids club. It does not follow that the hotel should use that data for broad targeting.
Design family flows so a parent or guardian initiates the action. Keep children's fields minimal, avoid unnecessary free-text collection, and delete activity-level data when no longer needed.
Why it is important worldwide
Children's privacy is a sensitive topic globally, from GDPR child consent rules to child online safety debates. Family properties that handle this well can make compliance feel like care rather than bureaucracy.
On the room TV, children can browse family activities, cartoons, pool timings, and dining options without creating a profile. Private booking or consent steps should move to a guardian's phone.
TVshuru angle: keep service discovery visible on the room TV, move private data entry to the guest phone, and make every guest-data flow easier for hotel teams to explain.
Sources and further reading
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