The Marriott Starwood Hack Exposed the Data of Over 500 Million People, and Up to 327 Million of them may have had passport details stolen. Passports are often required to check into international hotels, due to local laws, so these details are part of some Starwood profiles.
Marriott has faced mounting pressure to do more than just provide a 1 year subscription to WebWatcher to potentially affected guests, and has agreed to reimburse guests for a new passport, although seemingly only if they can prove fraud due to their passport number. Per Marketwatch, bolding mine:
“As it relates to passports and potential fraud, we are setting up a process to work with our guests who believe that they have experienced fraud as a result of their passports being involved in this incident.If, through that process, we determine that fraud has taken place, then the company will reimburse guests for the costs associated with getting a new passport”
Note that the Starwood breach dates back 4 years, to 2014. That same year, Starwood announced a credit card breach due to malware on point of sale cash registers in a number of properties in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, although presumably the hack that Marriott has disclosed affecting Starwood systems has encompassed many international properties as well, as most U.S. hotels only require a driver's license from U.S. residents who check in.
Security experts are recommending freezing your credit report with Experian, Equifax and Transunion, especially as it's now free (as of September 2018) to freeze access to your credit report. Just be aware that if you want to apply for a new credit card or other credit, unfreezing isn't instant, it can take a day or up to a few days.
How concerned are you about the Marriott / Starwood hack and the security of your passport details?
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Big companies need to be held accountable for the data they store about us. The terms of the reimbursement “we determine that fraud has taken place” is amazing! How can it ever be proved and by that point its way to late.
This philosophy is equal to saying I lost my house keys but we will not replace the lock until someone has come into your home and robbed it.
Crazy!
Lawyers will make a ton of money off all of this……
Mike, yes, that’s a very significant qualifier, which will effectively limit Marriott’s cash outlay for new passports. It will be interesting to see if Marriott does have to pay a GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) fine under EU law, which stipulates that fines, when imposed, can be 2-4% of annual turnover. Unfortunately that doesn’t help consumers, however. Hotels haven’t been a highly regulated industry, the way banks and financial services are, so data protection standards have been far more lax.