Melbourne: A documentary revealing alleged sale of confidential material held by Indian call centres, has raised concern among Australians as they feel threatened about their personal details going overseas without permission.
There is a substantial alarm over confidential details such as health and credit files being moved to countries where data security is weak, a media report said.
According to a survey, 91 per cent per cent Australians believed their personal information should only be stored overseas with their permission, according to research by McNair Ingenuity.
About the same proportion said they would choose a bank which kept their records in the country, according to the research commissioned by the country's Finance Sector Union, that is fighting the loss of jobs to India as recently announced by Qantas, Westpac and other leading banks.
The poll comes as alarming evidence is set to be revealed by a UK’s Channel 4, allegedly showing Indians selling confidential client data for as little as 12 dollars.
Channel 4, which spent one year on the report, says it has discovered the selling of confidential material held by Indian call centres.
This includes the passing on of personal bank account details of a number of customers from a range of British banks.
The programme is to show footage of the buying and selling of the details on an Indian street.
Opposition Labor Party leader Kim Beazley said Australian companies should be compelled to tell customers their files were to be transferred to overseas call centres and data processing operations.
Beazley said he wanted the government to change the Privacy Act to force the declaration before customers hand over their information.
Customers are not usually formally told when they are directed by a company to a call centre based overseas, he said adding nor are they informed when their records with the company, which could include their passport number and credit card numbers, have been sent offshore so that staff can respond to their questions.
"This means businesses are able to make whatever confidential arrangements they like for processing personal data in countries such as India and China -- without ever informing their customers," Beazley was quoted as saying by a newspaper.
"Australian consumers can be left vulnerable to having their data lost, stolen or mishandled since many of these countries have little or no law to protect the personal information of Australian customers," he said.
The McNair Ingenuity research found 85 per cent of Australians were concerned about the security of their files overseas and wanted disclosures by companies sending data
offshore.
FSU secretary Paul Schroder said: "It's time the banks stopped looking at cost reduction through exploiting lower-paid workers in foreign countries and started looking at the reputational damage they will cause themselves by going down this short-term road."
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