Hotel key cards...

[Hidden_Mickey]

Is this true? My DH got it in an e-mail. Sounds like urban legend to me, but you never know. I was wondering if you guys had heard of it. TIA


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!
>
> When you turn them 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!
>
> 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 in to 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!
>
> Information courtesy of: Pasadena Police Department
>
> ** 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.

 

[bradk]

not bloody likely for several reasons. just for your edification though:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

 

[ducklite]

False

http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/hotelkey.asp

 

[mika911]

It's false, but I take the keys as a souvenir.

 

[Hidden_Mickey]

Thought so! You guys rock!

 

[clownfish1452]

Dont we keep our keys they have our names on them. I always keep mine.

Sarah

 

[DarthKTrava]

I've got mine. Or at least my second key as a small magnet on my wallet fried the first one. Never had that happen to a key before! They took it and made me a new one.

 

[nhpooh]

It's false, but I take the keys as a souvenir.

I do the same thing every time!

 

[stitchlover]

I was going to ask...how do they "reissue" the Disney cards our names are printed on them. Not likely that they are reissuing these.

 

[Mr. Pig]

They would not re-issue cards because of the name printed on them. On a computerized system linking to a database there is no reason for any information other than a code number to be encoded. You may think that a lot of information can be encoded on a mag stripe but it usually is just a code number imprinted over and over so that if a small part is damaged it can still be read.

There are plenty of ways for employee's to steal data without the card. Anyone you hand a credit card to can steal the number. Later this year new security rules issued by the PCI (Payment Card Industry) must be put into effect limiting the exposure of credit/debit card numbers. It gets stricter the larger a company is so I imagine Disney is right at the top. I work for a grocery store chain and we have to make sure that card numbers and expiration dates can't even be looked up in the computer in transaction logs by store personnel.

 

[CanadianGuy]

As noted here.. there may be many ways for your information to be stolen while travelling, but from the mag stripe of your hotel room is not one of them.

I have access to a mag stripe reader as part of my job. As such, I decided today would be a great day to run the card from my recent stay thru the reader.

I just got numbers and none of them were any personal information of mine or in any way related to my stay.. other than being the number printed on the face of the card with a few trailing digits.

Knox

 

[dahirsh]

Theoretically, the magnetic strip could hold that information. But it's highly unlikely it does. No hotel has any need to put that sort of information on your key. Most keys "know" what lock to open and when to stop opening it. Other than also holding a unique identifying code for that key, that's it. Disney keys obviously may also have admission information on them. Non disney keys that are returned to the front desk, or left in your room at check out are reprogrammed over and over again until they are too scratched to record on the magnetic strip.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Actually.. Disney keys do NOT "hold" admission information. The admission information is merely linked to the number on the face of the card.

That admission information is actually stored in Disney's computers. When you swipe your room key to enter the parks, it reads your room key and the computer system determines your ticket entitlement based on what is attached to your room.

It's actually a fairly simple system when it comes right down it.

Knox

 

[WillCAD]

Theoretically, the magnetic strip could hold that information. But it's highly unlikely it does. No hotel has any need to put that sort of information on your key. Most keys "know" what lock to open and when to stop opening it. Other than also holding a unique identifying code for that key, that's it. Disney keys obviously may also have admission information on them. Non disney keys that are returned to the front desk, or left in your room at check out are reprogrammed over and over again until they are too scratched to record on the magnetic strip.

Actually, that's not correct, either.

The magnetic strips don't get recorded or re-recorded at any point, either at Disney or non-Disney hotels. The keys are never re-written once they leave the factory.

The keys don't "know" anything - it's the locks that know which keys to open for. And the turnstiles know which keys and tickets they can let in.

As CanadianGuy said, eh, those magnetic strips don't hold anything but the card's unique identifying number. All information about which room you're in, what ticket entitlements you have, and what you have charged to your room - all that stuff is stored on Disney's computers, NOT on the card.

The keys are not programmed or written on at all when you check in; they have been pre-programmed with unique serial numbers at the factory. When you check in, the CM swipes the key through the computer to read the serial number, then programs the computer - "Key #123456789-A6 is now entitled to enter room #2157 at All-Star Music between July 28, 2007 4:00pm and August 3, 2007 12:00am, and is also entitled to charge things in the park to XXX account and has YYY park ticket entitlements." The card itself never changes, the computer just assigns room, charging, and ticket entitlements to that card.

 

[dahirsh]

Actually, that's not correct, either.

The magnetic strips don't get recorded or re-recorded at any point, either at Disney or non-Disney hotels. The keys are never re-written once they leave the factory.

The keys don't "know" anything - it's the locks that know which keys to open for. And the turnstiles know which keys and tickets they can let in.

As CanadianGuy said, eh, those magnetic strips don't hold anything but the card's unique identifying number. All information about which room you're in, what ticket entitlements you have, and what you have charged to your room - all that stuff is stored on Disney's computers, NOT on the card.

The keys are not programmed or written on at all when you check in; they have been pre-programmed with unique serial numbers at the factory. When you check in, the CM swipes the key through the computer to read the serial number, then programs the computer - "Key #123456789-A6 is now entitled to enter room #2157 at All-Star Music between July 28, 2007 4:00pm and August 3, 2007 12:00am, and is also entitled to charge things in the park to XXX account and has YYY park ticket entitlements." The card itself never changes, the computer just assigns room, charging, and ticket entitlements to that card.

Not to drag this out, and taking it out of the WDW realm for this answer, but at least where I work, the locks themselves are not connected to any computer system. The keys have to be able to "tell the lock" that they should open with that key at that moment, or for any other key that they shouldn't. If the magnetic strip didn't hold that information the lock would have no way of knowing if the key was valid.

 

[tracipierce]

Wow, I didn't know you could keep your keys! I thought you had to hand them in, they will make a great addition to the scrap book :

 

[mika911]

Wow, I didn't know you could keep your keys! I thought you had to hand them in, they will make a great addition to the scrap book :

Yeah no worries keeping them.