Discover is taking its turn as chair of the PCI Security Standards Council with Discover network services vp Rob Tourt taking the helm on January 1. Tourt replaces Seana Pitt, vp of global merchant policy and data quality at American Express, who has held the role since the council was created a year ago.
The Council’s bylaws give a representative of each of the five payment card brands on the board a one-year stint in the role. Last month the group issued new security standards for payment application software. Retailers, who instead are lobbying card issuers to stop requiring them to retain entire card numbers from one to 18 months, see the move as insufficient.
The card issuers have rejected the retailers’ suggestion as a nonstarter, but Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan says making systematic changes so merchants need not maintain card information is more likely to secure that data than does expecting six million merchants to adequately protect the data.
