In the aftermath of last month’s data breach at retail giant Target, the United States Congress is considering more aggressive actions against merchants who find themselves at risk of exposing customer data to hackers. The facts surrounding the Target breach—during which the payment card data of over 40 million customers and other customer information of over 70 million customers was compromised—are well known.  In the wake of their revelation, Members of Congress have been clamoring for Target to be held accountable and to testify before Congress.  They are calling on Target to provide documentation of its payment card information security policies and systems, and they are requesting that Congress investigate whether companies and financial service providers are taking all actions needed to protect consumer data.  They also want to know whether stronger industry-wide cyber security standards are needed.  These investigations will target companies susceptible to data breaches, such as hotels and retailers, and be very costly and time consuming for the companies involved.  After weeks of direct and very public petitions by members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, Target retained legal counsel and agreed to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in early February.

In light of the recent barrage of prominent and very publicized data breaches, and the frenzy these breaches have caused in the media and in Congress, it is more important than ever for the hospitality industry to avoid the reputational and financially devastating consequences of data breaches by properly training its employees, managers, and IT personnel to comply with the Payment Card Industry’s (“PCI’s”) robust data-security practices and policies. Hoteliers looking to protect themselves from the nightmare of data breaches need look no further than Venza’s PCI training modules,a leading source of such training used by hotels around the globe.

The Venza Group has partnered with the law firm Arnall Golden Gregory (AGG) to create a series of interactive eLearning modules to address PCI compliance in the hotel industry. Management, employees and IT are taught about the requirements they must support as part of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards.  The Venza Group also has partnered with AGG to create an interactive eLearning module to train hoteliers on general privacy and security awareness issues and on sexual harassment prevention.