Delaware North and Springer-Miller Systems introduce guest data security standard

Springer-Miller Systems and Delaware North have implemented the Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) payment integration standard for securing guest data.

The HTNG standard was used in a hotel’s property management system and payment gateway to exchange and store guest information.

Tokenisation will convert card numbers to a data proxy. The token will be stored in business systems, eliminating the risk of storing cardholder information in property management or point-of-sale systems.

HTNG said it adopted tokenisation as the basis of the industry’s card data protection solution.

Springer-Miller Systems product management director Chris Donahue said: "When you look at it historically, integration has evolved incredibly. Before HTNG, two companies would sit down and spend months developing an API and then many more months building it.

"Now that we’ve got standards, you grab the specifications and you’re in building mode rather quickly."

Delaware North solutions architect Joe Rembold said: "Some of the workgroups have created a solution for something that isn’t even a problem yet."

The hotel industry collects guest credit card data on more than a billion transactions per year. HTNG said the industry’s fragmentation made hotels an easy target for hackers.

Personal data gathered by one supplier’s hardware may be sent via another supplier’s system, before being stored in a third supplier’s database.

Last month, Hilton and Starwood reported malware in their POS systems.