The British banking industry was scrambling to restore consumer confidence and tighten security on Thursday, after a ring of Indian call center workers was exposed for selling private information from UK bank accounts.
The Sun newspaper reported that Kharan Bharee, described as a Delhi-based computer expert, was buying the PIN and credit card numbers, private addresses and passport details of UK account holders from call center employees, then selling them to would-be identity thieves.
The paper's undercover reporter claimed to have purchased confidential account details of 1,000 Britons for around ?3 (US$5.46) each.
In response, big British banks and building societies, including Lloyds TSB, HSBC and Barclays, were on Thursday working with City of London police to address apparent security breaches, while reassuring customers that the outsourcing of call centers to India was, by and large, a safe practice.
"We have strict procedures in those call centers whereby staff are required to put all belongings in a locker and can't take bags or mobile phones to work stations," a Lloyds TSB spokesperson said.
"They should not have access to information like passport details and bank passwords ... so we are investigating how this has happened. The first we heard about it was when we were contacted by City of London police. We are taking the allegations very seriously," the spokesperson said.
Lloyds TSB, like many other big banks, has sub-contracted its call center operations to India, where cheap labor and favorable tax laws save the company millions each year. And while some banking officials reaffirmed their faith in the practice on Thursday, City of London police warned that cases of identity theft from Indian call centers were not new phenomena.
Meanwhile, Kiran Karnik, chief of India's leading software corporation, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), maintained India was a "trustworthy" destination for the outsourcing of call centers.
Karnik also told reporters that NASSCOM would help authorities in pursuing call center workers involved in illegal selling of customer information.
But despite those assurances, Steven Philippsohn, senior partner and head of fraud litigation at the London law firm Philippsohn Crawfords and Berwald, warned that companies risked exposing the confidential information by outsourcing call centers.
"The hazard with offshore operations is that data protection laws are often not in place and are difficult to enforce," Philippsohn said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,