Sensitive Data with Hotels
The caution of hoteliers regarding their data is justified. Hotels are a big source of sensitive data like guest information, credit card details, identity information like social security number, licenses or passports, health information and other confidential details. This is in addition to other data with the hotels about their employees, suppliers and their own operational and financial information.
Cloud PMS and Data Security Concerns
Making sure that the property management system, which is the core hotel data collection hub, is secure becomes their utmost priority. Cloud based property management systems bring with them a lot of advantages to the hotelier in terms of price advantage, flexibility, scalability and power. The only thing holding back the hotels from adopting the power of cloud is the data security and privacy concerns. Mainly the ones listed below:
– Data Security – To protect data against threats and hacks.
– Data Privacy – To ensure that the data is not shared with third parties.
– Data Backup – To ensure data is backed up in case of unforeseen circumstances.
– Data Sovereignty – Data sovereignty is the concept that information which has been converted and stored digitally is subject to the laws of the country in which it is located.
– Cross Border Data Flow – Concerns relating to data not being stored in one’s own country.
Cloud is Safe
Your cloud data is secure, in fact much more than what it would be with you, if you choose the right cloud partner. The factors in deciding the right cloud PMS solution are, the sensitivity of the data you generate and the responsibility as an hotelier to ensure integrity and security of the data. Many a times we have seen that the decision for choosing the right PMS fluctuates between features and price. The first question the hotel should ask is where is the data getting stored? There are a lot of cloud PMS providers who may have their own private data centres or local data centres that may not be secure but will reduce your subscription cost. Choose the cloud PMS that gives importance to data security and uses the best data centres and IAAS providers. Data with such Cloud PMS will ensure security and backup. You can also be assured that the company that gives importance to your data security will also have stringent data privacy terms.
Cloud, Security and Regulations
The Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) had said that cloud adoption in Asia has yet to reach its potential because of data protection concerns. Almost all the countries are now aware of the cloud wave and the advantages it brings. Countries are proactive in having constitutional protections and compliance requirements to mitigate the concerns of data security. The governments have started using cloud computing as well and to be able to win government contracts, big data companies are opening local data centres. Cloud data security has matured and multiple IAAS providers like Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure, Rackspace and IBM have entered the market with the best-in-breed data security features. You can rest assured that whatever measures you have taken for data security, the cloud PMS with the right IAAS would have taken more.
