Something For You To Consider
Are Cruise Line Key Cards Really Safe?
By Mike Groves
Something that I was personally unaware of is that cruise lines now appear to be placing even more of your personal details onto room access cards, often referred to as key cards. When I served with Seabourn we used the VingCard System, Norwegian by origin and extremely reliable, we only recorded the room number on the card and that was it - period! In actual fact only the Security Officer held the computer access codes for producing any master key cards; that was certainly still the case in 2005.
This morning I received information which greatly concerned me, both as a security professional and a consumer, that cruise lines have been placing far to much personal information onto passengers key cards, and without their (your) full knowledge?
So have you ever wondered what is on your magnetic key card these days?
Answer:
1. Your name
2. Your (partial) home address
3. Room number
4. Check-in date and out dates (previously used by crew to rob passengers houses)
5. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!
Because most cruise ships insist you hand in your key card at the gangway or front desk on disembarkation day, you effectively lose control of your private details at that point.
When you turn in your key card your personal information is still there and available for any employee to access it by simply scanning the card. A corrupt employee could easily take a hand full of cards off the vessel or otherwise pass them to an accomplice at the next port of call before then using a scanning device to recover 'YOUR' information. This would then be downloaded onto a laptop computer before they go shopping at your expense! They may even decide to just do it on line from the ship? Hell why bother to find an Internet cafe when they could just as easily spend your money from the middle of the ocean?
Simply put, the cruise lines do not erase your personal information until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically 'overwritten' onto the card and the previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process.
But until the card is rewritten for the next guest it usually is kept in a drawer at the front desk, and with YOUR INFORMATION STILL ON IT!
So the bottom line is either keep the cards and take them home with you or destroy them completely. NEVER leave them behind in the room or discard them in a wastebasket, in fact and I would strongly suggest you never turn them in when disembarking the vessel.
You will certainly sleep better knowing you have not left a lot of valuable personal information on your room card and which could be easily lifted off with a simple card reader.
For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket do not toss it in an airport trash basket. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip!
If you have a small magnet, pass it across the magnetic strip several times. Then try it in the door, it will not work. It erases everything!
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Something for you to consider
Are Cruise Line Key Cards Really Safe?
By Mike Groves QGM
Cruise Bruise Security And Safety Advisor
August 31, 2010
Okay so a serious problem has been identified and we all need to reduce the risk. In recent years consumer theft (identity theft) has gone through the roof and the vast majority of these criminals are based in far away lands where the law struggles to apprehend them; Africa, Pakistan and some countries in Eastern Europe.
So how can you stop this and better protect yourself, by carrying a magnet apparently?
Standard Key Card with Magnetic Strip
