"Your Life for Sale"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: June 23, 2005 5:23:44 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: "Your Life for Sale"


Dave:

The BBC reported this morning that today's edition of the (UK) Sun  
newspaper - a mass-market tabloid - carried a story about call centre  
workers in India selling details of bank accounts.

I checked and found they do have a website (of sorts), though it  
contains only a brief summary of the story, at:

  http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005280724,00.html



> Your life for sale
> Cash for a villain ... crooked Kkaran Bahree with Sun undercover  
> reporter Oliver Harvey in Delhi
>
> By OLIVER HARVEY
>
> CROOKED call centre workers in India are flogging details of  
> Britons' bank accounts, a Sun probe has found.
>
> Our undercover reporter was sold the top secret information on a  
> thousand accounts, and numbers of passports and credit cards.
>
> For Full Story and Pictures Buy Today's Sun Newspaper

Luckily, prompted by the story, the BBC has a fuller version of the  
story online at:

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4121934.stm



>  Indian call centre 'fraud' probe
>
> Police are investigating reports that an Indian call centre worker  
> sold the bank account details of 1,000 UK customers to an  
> undercover reporter.
>
> The Sun claims one of its journalists bought the personal details  
> from an IT worker in Delhi for £4.25 each.
>
> They included account holders' secret passwords, addresses, phone  
> numbers and passport details, it reports.
>
> City of London Police has begun an investigation after being handed  
> a dossier by the newspaper.
>
>  The centre worker reportedly told the Sun he could sell up to  
> 200,000 account details each month.
>
> Details handed to the reporter had been examined by a security  
> expert who had indicated they were genuine, the paper said.
>
> The information passed on could have been used to raid the accounts  
> of victims or to clone credit cards.
>
> 'Reflect on decision'
>
> More than one bank is thought to be involved in the fraud.
>
> A police spokeswoman said officers were not yet aware of "the  
> breadth of what we are going to be investigating".
>
> "While the allegations made in the dossier are very serious, City  
> of London Police would like to remind people that incidents of this  
> kind are still relatively rare," she said.
>
> The Amicus union said it had warned of the "data protection  
> implications" of offshoring financial services.
>
> "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," senior finance officer Dave Fleming said.

Cheers

Brian Randell

--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon  
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/



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