Indian call center staff sold data, TV show says
An undercover TV investigation claims to have infiltrated criminal gangs selling thousands of U.K. credit card and passport details for as little as $9.50 each from offshore call centers.
The "Dispatches" documentary, shown on U.K.'s Channel 4, follows a 12-month investigation. It included footage of middlemen offering an undercover reporter the credit card details gleaned from Indian call centers of 100,000 U.K. bank customers.
But Indian IT trade organization Nasscom criticized Channel 4 for refusing to show it any of the footage before it was broadcast on Thursday evening. It urged the program makers to cooperate in rooting out and prosecuting any "corrupt" call center workers.
"The whole issue of data security is a global problem," said Sunil Mehta, a vice president at Nasscom. "There are bad apples in every industry around the world, and these incidents happen in India and the U.K. This is not a widespread problem in India. Security measures and practices that Indian companies have are the best in the world."
