Choice Hotels Notifies Guests of Inadvertent Disclosure Issue

Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) has taken steps to address and notify guests of an issue involving inadvertent disclosure of certain guest information to third parties with whom Choice has business relationships. While most guests involved have been contacted already, the company is issuing this press release to alert the small number it could not identify. The issue occurred very infrequently from June 2015 - March 2016 (likely less than 25 times), but information to identify specific guests involved during this timeframe is unavailable. Overall, this issue occurred approximately 88,000 times from June 2015 through November 12, 2019, and Choice has already notified individuals involved from April 2016 forward by sending them an email.

As soon as Choice identified what caused this issue, the company made changes to its website to override how Safari responds after a crash. Choice is also contacting the third-party companies it works with to ask them to delete any data they may inadvertently have.

What Information Was Involved?
If a visitor was using Safari and was on the reservation page when the browser crashed, the information typed in fields on that page that could have been put in the website address when the browser restarted may include the name of the person making the reservation, email address, state, zip code, country code, and the number and expiration date of the payment card used to make the reservation. If the reservation was being made using a mixture of points and payment, the external verification value on the card may have also been in the website address.

For More Information:
Please visit www.choicehotels.com/about/browser-crash-incident for additional information.