Friday, Jun 24, 2005
Friday, Jun 24, 2005 |
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India & World
Hasan Suroor
LONDON: The police here are investigating allegations that a worker at a call centre in India sold confidential details of British bank account-holders to an undercover journalist. The probe follows a report in The Sun that its reporter Oliver Harvey was able to buy "top secret information" on 1,000 accounts from a "crooked" call centre worker in Delhi. The newspaper, which published a picture of "Karan Bahree" talking to its journalist, claimed that the man was paid £2,750 for the information that could be used to access the accounts. The details were said to include passwords, passport data and addresses making the affected account holders vulnerable to identity theft. These were shown to security experts who confirmed that the details were genuine, the newspaper said. The informant, believed to be a middleman, reportedly offered to provide details of up to 2,00,000 bank accounts handled by more than one call centre. This prompted The Sun to conclude that the alleged scam was not confined to one call centre and that call centre workers across India were "flogging" details of British bank accounts. Several major banks, including Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Abbey have call centres in India but it is not known which, if any, of these was affected. One bank was reported as saying it was investigating the allegations but it was too early to say if its accounts had been compromised. The police acknowledged that the allegations were "very serious" and advised people not to respond to unsolicited calls on their account security details. The Sun disclosure comes weeks after the Financial Services Authority, in a report, warned that off-shoring of bank accounts was potentially risky for the security of account holders.
Union steps up campaign
On Thursday, a leading trade union, Amicus, stepped up its campaign against off-shoring British jobs to India and other countries. "Companies that have offshore jobs need to reflect on their decision and the assumption that cost savings benefiting them and their shareholders outweigh consumer confidentiality and confidence," it said.
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