Passport details required for Osaka booking

[Gemma37]

Hi, 

I'm being asked for personal information from my host for a booking in Osaka. The details being requested are: <Required Information>
Apartment name;
Room number;
Date of stay;
Date of reservation;
Family name;
Given names;
Nationality;
Home address;
Email address (Representative of the group);
Passport No. (Travel document No.);
 

Is this common practice? The host has many good reviews but I'm still uneasy with providing such personal details. 

Anyone come across this before? 

[Yuki47]

I am a host here in Osaka.... and I too am finding it hard to lock down the exact details regarding the collection of copies of passports. All lodgings in Japan regardless of Airbnb, hotels, etc. are requested by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to collect this data. 

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/lodging/index.html

There has been a lengthy debate on this topic, even here in Japan. If you really are concerned, please read the following link and come to your own conclusion as to what you should do.

https://www.debito.org/?p=13852 

My basic protocol is to request all the information from the guest, including a copy of passport. The only reason is that I do not personally check in my guests so I cannot 100% confirm that it is them. However, if a guest refuses, I respect their privacy. I still require their names, e-mail address, number of guests, address, nationality, and passport number. 

Easiest way to avoid giving your passport in Japan to a hotel...   Just tell them that you live here. Give them an address in Japan. You could for example give them the address of the last hotel you stayed at, and... then they are not required to ask to copy your passport if you are living in Japan. Well... you are, right? For a week or two.  🙂

[Rodney49]

Yes, that is actually completely normal under the new regulations in Japan.

  To comply with hotel law, hosts (such as myself) now have to keep passport details of guests on file for 3 years.  It's annoying that we have to ask for it, but it's not dodgy at all.  It's just what Japanese hosts are now required to do.  I'm asking for photos of guests passport pages, and keeping them on file in case the government ever asks for them.  Not doing that could land a host in a lot of trouble.

I hope that helps put your mind at ease.

[Harvey0]

I just had a police officer come by my house about 3 hours ago to make sure that I was copying passports and keeping a record of who was staying. He didn't ask to see anything but wanted to emphasize it is important to the police that we keep this record.

One week ago we also got a call from the Shinjuku Police Office in Tokyo asking us if anyone from a long list of names was staying with us that weekend. Most were Japanese and appeared to be related to the death penalty of the Aum people.

Just a couple of interesting incidents...

[Annemarie143]

I had the same question. Decided to comply. 

[Gillian166]

have just booked airbnb in tokyo and had this request and i'm feeling very uncomfortable about it.  I also feel sorry for hosts who have the added responsibility of storing passport details of their guests. I don't really care, or feel confident, that my host (and not my host, a 3rd party) has said "we don't share this information", but didn't mention how secure their computer is or how they store this info. The Aust Gov website recommends making a redacted copy of the passport so i've done just that, and included the airbnb logo and property ID on the page. 

[Anna1935]

My host asks me to use:

https://pms-faminect.jp/en/auth/login

for registration Could anbody say what is this portal? Who has access to information I submit there?

Thank you in advance!

[Leo262]

So with redacting a copy of the passport, what exactly can you blank out?

[Kelvin58]

Hey Anna, my host asked for me to sign up via the same website in addition to pay him some taxes in addition. 

[Ana1136]

@Kelvin58 We are required to pay daily taxes per person and report an temporary place of stay for each guest to the police with all their personal information. We do all of this for free, we even pay the tax ourselves, but if guests don't feel comfortable sharing that with us they need to go and by registration cards, fill them out, take them to the police station, and pay their taxes which can take up to a few hours of their vacation. And there is no guarantee that they will do that, in which case we might get a fine as big as our summer earnings so it is not even up for debate whether to report them or not. I am sure that scammers have many many other ways of getting personal data from people in this internet world, I highly doubt that they will set up Airbnb homes and go through all the trouble of registering a business and the enormous fines that go with it just to take personal data from random guests all over the world. 

[Tim729]

Hello

I think this issue has been resolved for non-Japanese staying in Japan, but can someone point me in the direction that Japanese nationals need to also provide copies of their passports?  I am not Japanese, but my wife and kid are and my kid does not have a passport right now.  A host in Kyoto is saying everyone, including Japanese, need to show their passports. 

From what I understand about 35M Japanese own passports, but the country is about 120M people. That means about 2/3s of the country should not be able to use Air b n b or stay in other type of accomodations within their own country.

Thanks for any help.

Tim

[Harvey0]

Japanese have to show some form of ID to prove identity, but do not need to have a passport copied. This is also true for foreigners who live in Japan and have a Residence card.

[Annie728]

不知什麼原因網站 核實 唔到 我的 驗證碼,所以填寫唔到我們的個人資料。應該什麼辨？日本政府會怎樣？

[Vincent129]

日本政府不管... From visitors perspective. Japanese government will take finger print at the border anyway and they will ask where you live, you just need to provide that information to the border security... It is the responsibility for the renter to collect the info.  I hope I get your question right LOL

[Annie728]

Thank you

[Candy70]

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