The keycard myth

While passing through a hotel lobby a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but listen in on a middle-aged couple as they hovered anxiously over a keycard drop box. The husband, having already checked out, wanted to toss the cards in the secured metal box with the slotted top. His wife, however, was a bit more cautious. Those cards had their credit card data and other personal information on it, she argued. The only way to dispose of them properly would be to cut them up and discard them when the couple returned home.

Had the two not been in such an agitated state—they were already late for the airport, the husband curtly informed his wife—I might have stopped over to put their worries at ease.

As all savvy hoteliers (and industry trade journalists) know, the notion keycards contain any personal information is as old as keycards themselves. Or, as tech consultant John Burns of Hospitality Technology Consulting described the myth: “(It’s) absolutely fallacious. There is absolutely no truth to it. It’s an urban rumor that goes around and around and around.”

It seems the myth has been going around with greater frequency as of late, courtesy of a few misleading e-mail forwards and an air of general economic uneasiness.
As hoteliers, it’s your job to dispel this myth—and it starts at the front desk. Inform your staff what information is and isn’t included on keycards so they can accurately field questions from anxious guests.

So what kind of info lies within that pesky little magnetic strip?

“It doesn’t have your social security number, and it doesn’t have your mother’s maiden name,” Burns said.

More specifically, keycards generally contain a code to open a given guestroom, as well as the check-in and check-out dates through which it’s active. That’s it.

Had that couple known this, the husband probably would have tossed their keycards carelessly into the drop box instead of pocketing them before rushing out to catch a cab. Sure, that decisions was based in a certain amount of ignorance, but given the prospect of enduring a plane ride in close quarters with an angry spouse, it was probably the smartest move he could have made.