Skyscanner and TripAdvisor ‘send data to Facebook’
Ian Taylor
ian.taylor@travelweekly.co.uk
Online travel giants Skyscanner and TripAdvisor are among the companies caught up in the latest allegations of data-security breaches levelled against Facebook.
A study of more than 30 popular
Android phone apps by campaign group Privacy International found two-thirds sent personal data to Facebook from the moment they were opened – before users could be asked for consent and regardless of whether the subjects were Facebook users. rivacy nternational identified
Skyscanner, TripAdvisor and Kayak apps as among those sending personal data to Facebook without users’ consent. The researchers examined apps
with built-in Facebook trackers and intercepted data as it was sent. They reported Kayak shared
“We will audit all our consent tracing and are committed to ensuring privacy rights are respected”
detailed information on flight searches with Facebook, including travel dates, destinations and flight details, and hether users had children. The EU’s General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) hich came into force last ay requires the explicit consent of users before personal information is collected or shared. Regulators in EU member states
can levy fines of up to of gloal revenue on companies found guilty of a serious breach of the GDPR. Skyscanner responded by thanking Privacy International for alerting it “to this issue”. The metasearch site said: “Our goal is
FACEBOOK: Several travel apps are accused of data breaches
to be as transparent and upfront as possible with travellers regarding what information is collected from them and who it is shared with.” ince eing notified, yscanner
said: “We released an update to our app which will stop the trans- mission of data. As a further result, we will audit all our consent tracing and are committed to making any changes necessary to ensure privacy rights are respected.” TripAdvisor also issued
a response, noting: “We are committed to engaging with Privacy International. Respecting the data protection rights of our users is of utmost importance to TripAdvisor.” However, TripAdvisor also uestioned the findings. Kayak has yet to respond to the study.
ECI Partners buys Travel Chapter from Phoenix
Holiday lettings agency Travel Chapter has changed hands in a private equity deal for an undisclosed sum. Phoenix Equity Partners, which
bought into Travel Chapter in 2016, sold its stake to ECI Partners for 3.6 times its investment in a deal confirmed on onday. Devon-based Travel
Chapter, which includes the
Holidaycottages.co.uk site and a host of UK regional holiday-let sites, made 20 acquisitions between 2016 and 2018 with the support of Phoenix. hief eecutive Jamie orris,
who will continue to lead the business, said: “I look forward to working with ECI as we continue to grow the business.” ECI has previously invested
in Great Rail Journeys and travel management firm eed acay.
SOLD: Travel Chapter operates the Holidaycottages lettings site
Marriott revises Starwood data breach to 383m records
arriott has issued an update on the cyberbreach of its Starwood reservations platform, saying the number of guests affected was “less than the initial disclosure”. The world’s largest hotel group announced the personal data of up to 500 million Starwood guests had been compromised on November 30, in a breach etending ac to 1. At the end of last week, arriott reported it had identified “approximately 383 million records as the upper limit for the
involved, as in many instances there appear to be multiple records for the same guest.” It added: “The number of
payment cards and passport numbers involved is a relatively small percentage of the total.” arriott said it elieves
DATABASE: Marriott shut Starwood reservations systems last year
number of guest records involved”. arriott noted This does not mean information about 383 million unique guests was
approximately 5.25 million unencrypted passport numbers were included” and “20.3 million encrypted passport numbers”. It insisted there was no
evidence that encryption keys had been accessed, and said its
call centre representatives would be able to check whether guests’ passport numbers were among those leaked. arriott added that
“approximately 8.6 million encrypted payment cards were involved, of hich , were unexpired as of September 2018”. Again, it said there was “no evidence” that encryption decoding details were accessed. The company confirmed it shut
down the Starwood reservations database at the end of last year.
10 January 2019
travelweekly.co.uk79
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