In this week edition of Channel 4’s “Dispatches“, aired on Thursday 9 PM, Sue Turton, senior reporter for Channel 4 News, investigates the call centre security failures which allow personal financial details to be stolen and illegally traded. The documentary was in making for almost a period of 12 months. The film just goes on to show how unsafe is personnel data in the hands of call center employees. 100,000 U.K bank customer details were obtained by the reporter using the middlemen. Indian Call center Industry is a booming industry with revenues touching $6.3 billion in 2005-2006. Nasscom had requested Channel 4 to share with the footage even before airing so that it can take action on the alleged employees. Even before this documentary which showcases Data Theft, there have been instances where a SUN reporter got the personal data call center employees. Infact it was those instances pushed Nasscom to setup a National Skills Registry. The aim of National Skills Registry is to record the employees’ professional history, educational and personal background. An independant third party validates the data and is aimed at creating a secure environment against misuse of employee IDs. Nasscom is also setting up an industry regulatory body that proposes security standards which companies can chose to adhere to. 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. Even in this particular case one of the alleged data seller claims that he sold fake data to the reporter. Isn’t this interesting?