Privacy and outsourcing fears in the UK

The latest SANS privacy bits contains the following report:

: "UK: Loophole in EU Data Protection Laws Puts UK Consumers at Risk (16 October 2004)

According to Peter O'Grady, assistant secretary of Lloyds TSB Group union, British consumers are at risk due to the outsourcing of call centers in India and other developing countries. Information given to call center operators in India by British consumers is not protected due to a legal loophole in the European Union (EU) data protection laws. His warning comes as Royal Sun Alliance, an insurance giant, announced it was sending 1,100 jobs to India.

-http://www.123bharath.com/world-news/index.php?action=fullnews&id=29206

Related Article: Royal Sun May Set Up Call Centre In Bangalore

-http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/sep/17bpo.htm

[Editor's Note (Murray): They are at it again. This is economic protectionism masquerading as a concern for privacy. (Triulzi): Unfortunately as the drive towards outsourcing continues these issues are going to become more and more relevant. India's government has been working to address data privacy issues although as of today it does not yet possess any legislation in the field. The real question should be: isn't the data ending up in too many different hands? A large insurer surely has data which should be closely guarded (e.g. medical claims) - what are they doing to guarantee the security of this data? ]"