Breakaway Destination Guides (International)

Breakaway’s Travel World

A Guide to Golden Lands and Faraway Places

Breakaway Golden Lands
MasterCard Global ATM Locator. With more than a million ATMs in over 210 countries, you're never far from a MasterCard, Maestro or Cirrus ATM. Locate an ATM Machine
It a good idea to check out the wine of the area
Your Hotel Key Cards
Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?
Answer:
a. Customer's name
b. Customer's partial home address
c. Hotel room number
d. Check-in date and out dates
e. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!
Key Cards
When you turn your key card in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner. An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.
Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically 'overwritten' on 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 with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!
Not all cards will contain personal data. However some cards may contain personal data. This depends on what the hotels system has been designed to do. In the normal course there is no reason to have any extraneous data in the stripe but the room numbers.
The bottom line is:
Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them. NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them into the front desk when you check out of a room. They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device 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 on the card.
In January 2006, Computerworld investigated the key card rumors by collecting and examining over 100 hotel card keys and found no personally identifiable information on any of them:
As part of a Computerworld investigation into the allegations, reporters and other staff members who traveled last fall brought back 52 hotel card keys over a six-week period. The cards came from a wide range of hotels and resorts, from Motel 6 to Hyatt Regency and Disney World. They scanned them using an ISO-standard card reader from MagTek Inc. in Carson, Calif. (the type anyone could buy online).
They then sent the cards to Terry Benson, engineering group leader at MagTek, for a more in-depth examination using specialized equipment. MagTek also gathered cards from its own staff. In all, 100 cards were tested. Most cards were completely unreadable with an off-the-shelf card reader. Neither Benson nor Computerworld found any personally identifiable information on them. Based on these results, 'We think it's unlikely that hotel guests in the U.S. will find any personal information on their hotel card keys. We also purchased our own MagTek card scanner and have scanned several dozen magnetic room keys we acquired during our various hotel stays over the last few years and likewise found not a single key with any personal information stored on it.'
Bird "Without Animals ther is no Paradise" Bird
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