I would say the hotel stay situation is more like a "papers please" than a "situation where I wish to identify myself". Last time I booked a hotel via an app a

I would say the hotel stay situation is more like a "papers please" than a "situation where I wish to identify myself". Last time I booked a hotel via an app at the last minute for an overnight stay after going to the pub in a city away from home, the booking process didn't mention we needed to show our passports at reception. It was a new policy for that hotel. When we went to the hotel, about midnight, of course we didn't have passports with us, why would we? It's not normal to take your passport when visiting a neighbouring city for a night out. I've stayed at countless hotels, and never had this problem before. But I understand the UK is becoming more draconian so perhaps a rule had kicked in since the previous time I went to a hotel. But I had the impression, it was a recent policy change by this hotel, and "oh, we should update our website". It was pouring with rain, there were no other hotels accepting bookings by then, and the last train home would be in a few hours. Our Uber had dropped us off, and hotel reception was telling us we had to go outside into to the pouring rain as we couldn't stay despite having paid. They knew perfectly well who we were. It wasn't an identity thing. We were able to show booking numbers, credit cards, confirm emails, and other forms of identity. But not the type their new policy required. They required every guest's passport, not just one person. As luck would have it, we each spent about an hour trawling through the contents on our electronic devices and online, and we each found images of our passports in some location or other because of the ubiquitous requests for photos of passports these days, and those photos were accepted by the hotel.