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.
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS