Thought Your Financial Info Was Safe In Restaurants? Think Again

Customers who hand over credit cards to bartenders and wait staff deserve better protection than they got from a large restaurant chain, say state attorneys who recently won a six-figure settlement for a restaurant group's data-security failures.

The Briar Group, in Boston, agreed to pay Massachusetts $110,000 in civil penalties under the terms of a settlement announced on March 28, stemming from an eight-month long data breach in 2009 in its restaurants' computer systems that allowed hackers to access customers' credit and debit information.