How Safe Is Your Data?
How Safe Is Your Data?
January 4, 2006: Highlighting the importance of data security, the international Hotel chain Marriot and Income Tax company H&R Block have both admitted to potentially compromising customer data this week.
Marriott announced the loss of data tapes containing personal details of 206,000 customers from its Vacation Club International time-share division.
The tapes disappeared from the company’s corporate office in Orlando, Florida and contain details including Social Security numbers (SSN), credit card details and in some cases bank details.
The company says that the tapes require specialised equipment to access the data, however as a precaution it is offering affected customers free enrolment in a credit monitoring service so they can keep an eye on their account activity.
Marriott says it has begun an intensive investigation, notifying state and federal officials, credit card companies and the US Secret Service of the loss. The investigation has not as yet yielded any results.
IDM is awaiting comment from Marriott.
H&R Block this week also admitted to exposing customer Social Security numbers via its free TaxCut software. The SSN’s appeared inside a 47-digit tracking number assigned to each customer which was stuck to the box above the mailing label.
The company blamed a user error for the issue and said that it affected less than three percent of customers. It says no customer data has been lost or stolen as a result of the error.
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