Institute for the Protection of Private Data finds hotel camera system broke the law

The governmental agency for the protection of private data has ruled that a camera system used in the Prague Savoy hotel was misused. Specifically, the case relates to a meeting between a Social Democrat lobbyist and Jiří Weigl, head of the office of the Czech president, which took place at the Savoy and was captured on its cameras. A recording of the meeting was made public around the time of the presidential elections leading to speculation that President Klaus was attempting to illicitly gain votes from some Social Democrat MPs – while the party officially supported opposition candidate Jan Švejnar. How the video recordings of the meeting were leaked to the media is still being investigated, but at present, the agency investigating the incident has found the hotel to be involved in excessive surveillance of its customers, storing surveillance recordings and not informing guests that they are being monitored. The hotel has denied the charges stating that recordings are made for the safety of its guests.