Holland America Line warns of passport data breach

Holland America Line’s parent company has been hit by an intrusion on its systems. The criminals were able to gain access to personal information such as passport numbers and social security numbers.

The break-in at Carnival Corp. took place in mid-March and was discovered on March 19, after which a security company was called in to investigate the impact. The unauthorized access concerned customer and staff data. According to the company, it involved data related to bookings and services and his role as an employer. Carnival Corp. says that, among other things, covid testing is part of the service.

In concrete terms, this concerns names, addresses, telephone numbers, passport numbers, dates of birth and health data. It also concerns citizen service numbers, but the company claims that this may be the case ‘in some limited cases’. There would be evidence that there is ‘a small chance’ of misuse of the data, the claim goes on to say.

Carnival Corp. claims to have submitted reports of the data breach to the required authorities. Neither the company’s website, nor those of its subsidiaries Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line and Princess Cruises, contain a notification, but according to the Associated Press, the company has notified customers. Security.nl points to a report on behalf of Holland America Line to the attorney general of the American state of Montana with a date of May 7.

It is not known how many customers of the cruise line were affected. Last year, Carnival Corp. hit by ransomware.