So far so good, the information has arrived safely to the travel agent's computer, but what happens with your credit card information then?
It arrived safely, but will it stay safe?
Remember the agent can send your data over to another departments, as from the operation department to the accounting department. Sometimes these departments have different offices, and even if they are next door - it's often easier to transfer files directly from computer to computer.
It's your turn to ask yourself who can then get your credit card and personal information during this transfer?
Secondly, do the computer/s have a firewall that protects your data from others that may come in via the Internet connection snooping for data? Remember, it's your credit card information and your money on that bank account we are talking about!
Did I make you afraid now?
Well that was basically the meaning, as you should always ask the agent you order from: "how do you store my data?"
For the travel professional who did not think about this part, the question must be: What can I do?
The best is to add to the security level you provide the client via your secure server and mail data encryption, equally to the computers that store these data. The good news is that it's very easy to secure these data totally, and secondly - it's not expensive (for the travelers private use the programs I will recommend are even free!).
Wrote about the "classic" encryption tool - PGP - in Hush, Zimmermann is here!, and PGP is of course brilliant. Still, let's face that it's not the easiest encryption tool to start with for many. This leads me to present two other programs. Both can encrypt documents, folders - along with creating "exe" files that can be opened by the receiver without having any software for this.
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