NEW CLAIMS that hotel keycards can be used to access guests' credit card details have been branded by London's Metropolitan Police Service as "a complete hoax".
Buying Business Travel contacted Scotland Yard after receiving a warning - ostensibly from the Met - about keycard security. "When you turn them [the keycards] in to the front desk," the document says, "your personal information is there for any employee to access. An employee can take a hand full [sic] of cards home and, using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense."
However, a Met spokesman says the document does not come from the police, and has already been investigated and found to be completely untrue.
According to Securitypark.net, a website for the security industry, electronic keycards rarely contain any personal information. "In most hotels, the keycard system is not even connected to the front desk system, therefore there are no risks that confidential information can be encoded on the card," Securitypark.net explains. "And even when keycards can be used to purchase goods or services, the credit card information is not encoded on the keycard itself."