If you count retailers in your customer base, you are well aware of the importance of payment card industry (PCI) compliance. If not, you are soon to be on the fast track to understanding how this three-letter acronym will impact your business.
Today, any merchant that accepts credit cards must be in compliance with PCI Security Council standards. These standards were enacted to help safeguard credit card data from being stolen through network breaches and ineffective IT security practices. While there are several PCI security standards, the most applicable to the video surveillance industry is the PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry — Data Security Standards). PCI-DSS outlines actions that must be taken by both payment software vendors (such as point-of-sale applications that handle credit card transactions) and the merchant themselves in how they configure and protect the network that the payment systems are connected to.