The new lockdown law for pubs and restaurants in England means that pubs and restaurants MUST collect test and trace details for every customer which will only add to the perfect storm of liability building for businesses in the hospitality sector.

The Prime Minister announced  (9/9/2020) that pub and restaurant staff members will, by law, be required to keep a track of customer details in a bid to stop the spread of the coronavirus and these must be retained for 21 days and be available to hand over to the NHS track and trace team on request. The way this is currently being delivered differs dramatically amongst venues from ‘guest books’ at the entrance, to a member of the team collecting data at the door, to slips of paper being completed at the bar.

Many of these methods are leaving venues open to future claims or action under GDPR if they are not following proper procedures to protect customers’ and staffs’ personal data.

These rules mean that a pub or restaurant must complete a risk assessment including assessing that the information is:

• Kept secure (a cardboard box is unlikely to be sufficient)
• Access by a bare minimum of people
• Only kept for as long as is necessary
• Involves informed consent of exactly what the data is being used for
• Provide a means for people to see and amend their information

Under the new law, it is the venue’s responsibility to check that every member of the party has registered. This means venues need to consider how they can police this – simply asking for a slip on first visit won’t be enough as will the staff know if every member of a group has registered through the night.

 Leading mobile order and pay app – JUST-SNAP are offering a compliant, customer registration app free to all pubs and restaurants. Simply sign-up on just-snap.co.uk/guestbook and you can print individual QR codes.

 Customers scan these when they enter the venue or visit order points and the system records their visit and their details – holding their data securely in an encrypted file. The app also lets customers show staff that they are registered in that venue for the date and the record of their visit can then be provided to the track and trace team on demand.