Data theft: the bloggers' view
Updated on 06 October 2006
"Your banking info is so cheap!" Read the blogosphere's reaction as Dispatches' blew the lid on data theft in India.
Some bloggers reacted to Channel 4's Dispatches documentary with surprise. Newageold is amazed at the price of personal data: "Sometimes, the amount of money can be as small as £5 ($9.45). Your banking info is so cheap!"
Others, meanwhile, responded with fear. Desigirl says the programme: "brought to the fore what we all fear deep down - some faceless person getting their grubby hands on our personal and financial data and using it to their own means."
She says: "Here in the UK, there's going to be a great deal of panic amongst the public and this would undoubedly be fanned by the media and others disgruntled by the shifting of operations to countries like India and China."
Buckleupnow is even more suspicious, throwing the book at Indian call centres: "The film just goes on to show how unsafe is personnel data in the hands of call center employees... In a country with such a huge population and where money is a tempting factor, it cannot be totally ruled out that these kind of data leaks may never happen in the future."
But Ekawaaz is worried about these sorts of reactions. He says "It hard now a days to make people believe that a problem is with people (employees), not offshore/onshore. This sort of fraud and identity theft can happen anywhere and in fact it has happened more in US and UK, than in Indian call centre.
"Just because some greedy people we can't afford to lose our BPO industry reputation. We got many talented and honest people; we just need a proper standard recruitment procedure for this industry."
The day before the programme was aired, Razib Ahmed wrote on South Asia Biz: "This is surely the biggest blow to outsourcing industry of India. This documentary has already done a lot of damage (even before it is aired) to the image of India."
The next day, on Indian Raj, Ahmed braced himself for the worst: "Naturally, we can expect a bad reaction from the British people and the British media about outsourcing to India. Particularly, trade union leaders will have now something substantial to argue their case against outsourcing."
But, he says: "British companies went for outsourcing in the first place to cut back on their cost. As long as India can provide cheaper workforce, British companies cannot afford to stop outsourcing of their jobs. The only thing they can do is to change the place. If they are unhappy with India then they can go to Philippines, Pakistan or may be east Europe."
Ahmed criticises what he perceives to be Nasscom's attempt to downplay the documentary. He quotes Nasscom chief Kiran Karnik, as saying: "Such stories go to prove the lengths to which some vested interests will go to threaten this global industry with its reputation for customer value and security,"
Ahmed says of the 'conspiracy theory': "I respect Mr. Karnik a lot but I think that going on the offensive is not the right thing to do at this moment... India should identify these few bad guys who are destroying the image of the country."
