Data theft is a growing problem: British official

Shashwat Chaturvedi

It was a sting the Indian BPO industry had not braced itself against. Over the last few years, the antipathy towards Indian call centers seemed to have petered out. Except for a few opposing noises, hither and thither, nothing really of consequence was happening. The opposing voices seemed to have reconciled themselves to the economics of outsourcing.

But a few ‘conscientious’ media groups based overseas seemed to have picked up the cudgel to fight a battle against the Indian industry. So at regular intervals, one finds a sting operation is conducted, wherein a surreptitious person from one of the call center either selling confidential data or claiming to sell it.

Last year, July, The Sun newspaper from the U.K. had done a story, wherein an undercover reporter had supposedly managed to get hold of confidential information from a BPO employee in New Delhi. Before that, few employees of MphasiS (now EDS) were caught siphoning off money from Citibank account holders.

Coming to the latest incident, the UK-based Channel 4, conducted a yearlong sting operation, where in its reporter managed to secretly tape a few individuals allegedly selling data for cash. Done under the Dispatches series, the program was aired on October 4. Immediately there was uproar against outsourcing. Industry players were in disarray; no one would speak on the issue.

Then, the National Association of Software Services Companies (Nasscom) came into the picture. It decided to act as an intermediary between the authorities and the industry. It sent out a few comments to the media, highlighting the travesty of the industry. Nasscom even sent its Vice-President (Sunil Mehta) to London to ameliorate the effects of the sting.

Indeed there is a general feeling that the Indian BPO industry is made a scapegoat all the time and incidents like these only tend to complicate the matter. Take the instance of Channel 4, in spite of numerous rejoinders, the CEO, Andy Duncan, would not respond to queries. All the press and publicity folks at Channel 4 will tell you that, “no one from the production team is available for interaction as they are all working on new projects.”

That is highly odd, considering the kind of controversy that Channel 4 has created. Surely, if it could carry a yearlong undercover investigation, it should have the time to explain the reasons and the nitty-gritty of the whole story. In fact, Conservative Member of Parliament (U.K.) and Chairman, Trade and Industry Select Committee, Peter Luff is of the view that program (Dispatches) has behaved in a partisan and prejudiced manner.

“Dispatches is a program that has a reputation for troublemaking rather than problem solving. Although the allegations are serious, I know that the Indian industry takes security extremely seriously. Security issues are a problem in every country and every society. Dispatches would have been better advised to look at security of data in a range of countries, not just India. I strongly suspect the Indian call centers would have compared very favorably then,” was Luff’s take on the subject.

Post the sting operation, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in U.K. announced an enquiry into the whole incident. The agency would be assessing the level of security in Indian call centers and finding whether there is any vulnerability to the citizens of U.K. when the work is outsourced.

How critical/serious is the issue of data theft from Indian call centers? “The ICO does not hold information, which indicates the level of seriousness of ‘data theft’ from call centers in India or elsewhere. However, the ICO is aware that the issue of data theft is not confined to India,” says Dave Evans, Senior Guidance and Promotion Manager,

Information Commissioner’s Office (U.K.).

There is a rising trend in data theft incidents across the globe. In fact, there have been some high profile cases of data-theft in the U.K. itself. Agrees Evans. “Data theft generally is a growing problem in the United Kingdom. As set out in our report “What Price Privacy?” (footnote page 12) our office received 109 section 55 Data Protection Act complaint cases (which include alleged ‘data theft’ offences) between April 2005 and January 2006,” he says.

According to the KPMG Forensic’s Fraud Barometer, there has been more fraud (£653m) in the first six months of 2006 than in the whole of the most recent years.

So what happens next? ICO is conducting an enquiry; the results should hopefully be out in the next few months.

Back in India, the Nasscom is following up the data theft case at different ends. Whereas the BPO companies are heaving a sigh of relief, the fallout has not been as bad as it was predicted to be. The supposed perpetrators, who had agreed to sell the data, are currently on the run, with the police in hot pursuit.

Hopefully, there isn’t another media group that is working on a sting operation in India, trying to cajole another middleman to sit in front of a hidden camera and brag about selling sensitive data, putting the whole of the BPO industry on the back-foot.

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