Why Fitness Businesses Need to Take PCI Seriously

As fitness and exercise professionals, you naturally take safety seriously. Your duty of care gives your customers the confidence to train and get healthy. In the same way you put the safety of your clients first, your clients' data deserves a similar duty of care.

When it comes to data security, there is no compromise. Making sure strong data protection measures are in place is your responsibility. The Australian government, as well as both Visa and MasterCard, are taking steps to ensure that businesses like yours keep their customer data secure against potential cyber-attacks - which is why there is such a large push for PCI DSS compliance.

PCI compliance is applicable to all businesses that handle credit card data, even where they use a third party payments solution provider (like Ezidebit). In short, if your business accept payments from clients, your gym or fitness centre needs to be compliant.

 

We’ve got to admit, it’s not always easy. Between helping clients with their workout, keeping an eye on fitness trends and developing new courses, attracting new members and managing marketing and promotions, you’d be lucky to find enough time for anything else. The last thing you need in your busy schedule is an unwelcome disruption to your routine and being pulled away from your business to sort out data security issues.

 

So what is PCI DSS?

PCI DSS, or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, is a globally accepted and rigorous security framework that has been designed to help safeguard your cardholders’ data. It contains a series of requirements that any business accepting, transmitting, storing or handling cardholder data needs to comply with.

 

PCI DSS compliance requirements are far reaching and cover software design, network security, and even your login credentials, amongst other things. You can find more information on PCI DSS and its requirements in this whitepaper.

Compliance with PCI DSS requirements, while complex and expensive, will significantly reduce the risk of data breaches. When your fitness business integrates with a PCI DSS compliant partner, you and your clients are one step closer to ensuring payment data is secure, and you can have the confidence to focus on your business and your clients.

 

 

Australia Data Privacy Legislation

The Australian government recently legislated the requirement for businesses to put adequate safeguards in place to ensure all confidential information relating to clients is secured in accordance with the privacy law.

Introduced in late 2016, the Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) Bill requires businesses to publicly report data breaches when they happen. It is timely because Australia has one of the highest rates of information security breaches in the Asia-Pacific region. A ‘safety-first’ approach to data security and privacy therefore makes sense for your business.

Data breaches are worrying as they can cause direct damage to your clients, hurt the reputation of your business and affect the goodwill that you’ve taken months, if not years, to build. Any steps that can be taken to minimise that risk should be taken.

Ezidebit invests in the world’s highest payment security accreditation – PCI DSS Level 1 – to ensure your business and your client data is secure. We undertake the bulk of the technical complexity for PCI DSS compliance and reduce the burden on your business - as well as your payments risk.

Data breaches happen every day, so take a step back from the treadmill for a moment and make the safety of your customer data your number one priority.

 

 

Forecast your cash flow better with an Ezidebit direct debit solution. To learn how our payment solution can become part of your business strategy, call 1300 763 256.