WP: Outsourcing in India In Crisis Over Scam (private financial data sold)

Outsourcing in India In Crisis Over Scam
British Paper Alleges Security Breach

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 25, 2005; Page A18


NEW DELHI, June 24 -- India's booming outsourcing industry struggled with new political and security worries Friday after a British tabloid reported that one of its reporters purchased private financial data on British citizens from an Indian outsourcing worker as part of a sting operation.

The Sun newspaper reported Thursday that a reporter posing as a businessman purchased the bank account details of 1,000 Britons -- including customers of some of Britain's best-known banks -- for about $5.50 each.

The worker who allegedly sold the information bragged to the undercover reporter that he could "sell as many as 200,000 account details a month" and declared that "technology is made by man and it can be broken by man," according to the newspaper. The Sun said the worker received the information from "a web of contacts who work in call centers."

The newspaper's report, which was widely covered in the Indian news media, has renewed criticism that outsourcing firms have failed to erect adequate protections against fraud in their zeal to take advantage of the booming demand from foreign companies seeking to lower costs by shifting some office operations abroad.

The incident also has played into the hands of workers and politicians in Britain, the United States and other developed countries who see the outsourcing phenomenon as a threat to employment and prosperity at home and are eager to find ways to discredit it....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401951.html

They'll find a way to overlook this and all subsequent occurrences.

they are making it for their scumbag executives so they can rape their employees and shareholders.

The biggest incentive for businesses for outsourcing is BECAUSE the work can escape U.S. scrutiny and regulation.

Privatization also moves the work out from under the government eye. It would have been terribly naive to believe it would have been otherwise.

So they get all kinds of perks, but the real issue is labor costs.

No pesky U.S. minimum wage to worry about.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Citibank found an identity theft ring working
in its Indian operation just this April.
Cases of low paid workers holding sensitive
customer data for ransom are not unheard of.

Edit to correct factual error.

In the late 1990's I worked for a company that set up a program to allow disabled people to work from home on computers. 3M was putting submitted resumes and cover letters in a searchable database for managers to access. These resumes came from high school drop outs applying for janitorial positions to people looking for top management positions CEO's from multinational companies. They contained home and work phone, fax and cell numbers, email, all schooling and job history and some even contained SSN's. After 6 months 3M pulled the plug and started sending these resumes over to India. Dumpster divers my aunt Fannie!

There will always be those who want to make money any way they can. I'm just highly irritated that the ones who are supposed to be protecting my information want to turn around and charge me for "identity theft protection" because they aren't doing their job.

the credit cards you have, keep one or two, and kind of start all over? My best friend says this is what we should all do. I'm retired and really don't need credit cards so I know my situation is different than most, but does anyone know whether this is what I should do in my situation? Anyone of us could have seen this coming and I think most of us did.

your average age of credit accounts will drop, decreasing your credit score. of course, if someone steals your info the same thing could happen and it could take time to straighten the mess out. damned if you do, damned if you don't. how is it that every time something like this happens, we get f'ed?

corps are all about their money and care nothing about the consumer anymore!

I rarely use it on-line.
And, yes, less is better.

Outsourcing isn't even on the screen as we devastate the middle class and put our information into the hands of the lowest bidder.