Marriott pledges to pay for new passports for impacted guests

Marriott International has agreed to pay guests to replace their passports if it is found they have been victims of fraud or identity theft.

The company will reimburse guests but said the theft of passport numbers only represents a ‘smaller subset of customers,’ compared to other guest data stolen in an enormous data breach.

Marriott said potentially millions of customers had personal data stolen including birth dates, phone numbers, email and mailing addresses.

A huge data breach went undetected for four years at Marriott subsidiary Starwood Hotels & Resorts.

Last week Senate minority leader Charles Schumer urged Marriott to pay for replacement passports for impacted guests.

Marriott spokeswoman Connie Kim told the Washington Post it will do so but believes the risk to customers is ‘very low.’

The State Department says a fake passport cannot be created from just a  valid passport number, however in conjunction with other stolen personal data, there is a heightened risk of identity fraud.

"We are setting up a process to work with our guests who believe that they have experienced fraud as a result of their passports being involved in this incident. If, through that process, we determine that fraud has taken place, then the company will reimburse guests for the costs associated with getting a new passport," Kim said.