Data breaches terrify most businesses. In recent days, the fear has become reality for Marriot International following the disclosure that some 500 million Starwood Hotels and Resorts customer records had been exposed since 2014. 

Given GDPR, there has been much focus on the prevention of a breach with IT communities forced into the spotlight.

However, if you suffer a data breach ultimately it is the business leaders who are responsible for coordinating the response and protecting their business, customers and shareholders. When this happens, it comes down to how prepared you are as a company.

The reality is that most brands are judged on how they handle a data breach much more than the simple fact that there has been a breach. And in a world of social media, you can no longer hope for any breathing space between your becoming aware of a breach and the whole world knowing – indeed – you may even learn of the breach from a third party.

Furthermore, meeting the newly regulated periods for notifying the ICO of a breach, as little as 72 hours, is a challenge in itself. What would your plans be to protect consumers, your brand and your business? These are not issues that can be addressed ‘on the night’.

The travel industry is on the front line of this issue – the very nature of what we do means that businesses hold significant volumes of personal, sensitive and special category data – including financial and medical information linked to special requests, needs and travel insurance.

ABTA is holding a one-day seminar to address the practical issues around how you respond and recover from a breach. The seminar, held in London in March next year, sees contributions from subject experts who have handled the issues covered first hand including legal, insurance and cyber professionals. Held in partnership with ABTA Partner, Grant Thornton, the objective is to prepare delegates to manage a failure and leave this one-day event with a clear set of actions to put effective response plans in place.

To find out more about the seminar and to book your place visit abta.com/events.