Data Theft, Indian Style

I wonder how many regular visitors to this site caught the Channel 4 documentary the other night on data theft? Intrepid reporter Sue Turton went undercover posing as a business woman wanting to obtain personal details of potential marks, in an effort to see how leaky call centre security was.

Well, no surprises when she was offered thousands of names, birth dates and credit card details for 8 quid a pop. One individual even played our reporter recordings of transactions between a call centre employee and a potential customer back here in Blighty from his laptop.

The move to outsource call centres to the sub continent has upset many. My personal experience of these call centres has been poor. The mega irritating phone calls one receives via auto diallers that are silent for 5 seconds before being connected take the biscuit as far as I am concerned, and have upset many frail and elderly people, especially when they fail to connect.

It is very easy to tie this emotion into sensible discussions about call centre outsourcing. We all know that data theft goes on in all organisations and Indian based operations are no more or less likely to lose data in these circumstances.

Yes, there are problems with call centre security. But let’s try and deal with it rationally, wherever the call centre is located in our global village.