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NOYB, led by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, filed the
complaint with Spain's data protection agency on behalf of a
complainant who booked a Ryanair flight through the
Spanish-based online travel agency eDreams ODIGEO..
The Irish airline, Europe's largest by passenger numbers, says
on its website that in order to comply with safety and security
requirements it must verify the identity of passengers' booking
with travel agents because agents often do not provide Ryanair
with customers' contact and payment details.
Passengers can avoid verifying through facial recognition by
showing up at the airport at least 2 hours before departure or
submitting a form and picture of their passport or national ID
card in advance, a process Ryanair said can take seven days to
complete.
A similar process is not required when booking through Ryanair's
website or mobile phone app.
"There is no reasonable justification for Ryanair to implement
this system," NOYB said in a statement. "Instead, it seems like
the airline is willingly violating their customer's right to
data protection in order to obtain an unfair competitive
advantage over alternative booking channels."
NOYB has successfully launched privacy challenges against some
of the world's largest multinational companies across the
European Union under the bloc's General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR), introduced in 2018.
NOYB alleged that Ryanair's verification procedures are not
valid under the GDPR because the company does not provide
comprehensible information about the purpose of the "intrusive
process."
Ryanair said in response that its biometric and non-biometric
processes are both fully compliant with all GDPR regulations.
"Online travel agents scrape Ryanair's inventory and in many
cases miss-sell our flights and ancillary services with hidden
mark-ups and provide incorrect customer contact information /
payment details," the low cost carrier said in a statement.
"As a result, and in order to protect customers, any customers
who book through an online travel agents are required to
complete a simple customer verification process. This is to
ensure that they make the necessary security declarations."
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin, Editing by Louise Heavens and Jane
Merriman)
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