HERE'S an urban myth that refuses to die: Hotel card keys are gold mines for identity thieves, who extract credit card numbers and other personal nuggets from them.
This rumor, generating millions of Internet postings in recent years, is based on a thin premise at best.
Now it's been convincingly debunked by Computerworld, a Framingham, Mass.-based weekly trade tabloid for information technology professionals.
The publication challenged a top maker of magnetic card readers to find personal data on 100 room-card keys -- from Hilton, Holiday Inn, Sheraton, Westin and other major chains -- collected by staff members in their travels.
The result? Nada.
Even when scrutinized by a scanner the size of a stove top, the cards yielded only indecipherable strings of numbers and letters, said Terry Benson, engineering group leader for MagTek Inc. in Carson, who did the tests.
Card-key systems at hotels do keep secrets. They can monitor the comings and goings of staff, bill guests for restaurant meals and spa treatments, operate slot machines in casinos and more.
And in the future, you may be able to open your room door remotely, perhaps by waving a card or pointing your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone at it. At the front desk, a clerk you've never met may greet you by name, gleaning your identity -- and room preferences -- from a wireless pickup of biometric data.
All this technology is being perfected; indeed, some of it already is in place at a few sites.
For now, the basic magnetic-stripe card reigns as the king of room keys, used by most of the hotel industry, said Brian Garavuso, chairman of the technology committee for the American Hotel & Lodging Assn. in Washington, D.C.
The cards are popular because they are cheap, Garavuso said, so there's little incentive to find a substitute.
"We assume all the guests are going to walk off with them," said Thomas Spitler, vice president of front-office operations and systems for Hilton Hotels Corp. in Beverly Hills. "If we get them back, it's a bonus for us."
Birth of a rumor
AND what happens if someone walks off with your card key?
That question has spun a web of anxiety that may stretch back to 2003, according to the Pasadena Police Department.
That fall, officials said, a Pasadena detective at a seminar was told that another agency's investigators had found names, addresses and credit card numbers on hotel card keys. She alerted other detectives to the possible danger, causing a chain reaction of rumor.
