Missouri lawmaker moves legislation against outsourcing jobs to India

Kevin Childers

2004-01-10 20:28:23 UTC

And from what they've said they aren't even scratching the surface for
the amount of info that is going offshore. When you think about it for such
facilities they need to verify a lot of information to see if you are a
registered customer, are you in supported status, do you have an extended
maintenance contract..... With enough info they can easily steal your
identity for any number of purposes. Identity theft is not a new thing,
it's just become so much easier with the advent of the Internet and the
amount of data that is accessible online.

Network security over all is far less than is should be for most of this
information. Additionally the control of this information is vouched safe
only as far as the integrity of the current owner. When companies are
bought, sold, closed, there is no guaranty as to the security of the data it
has on file, be it electronic or hard copy. There have been several cases
of the data being sold as a company asset by creditors after companies go
bankrupt. Even the US Post office has been sited for posting info it said
it would not disclose on people making comments on it's operations, Do you
trust your creditors, and other service providers? Do you trust their
un-named and unknown subcontractors? When a company upgrades from hard copy
to digital record keeping, where do you think they send the hardcopy files
to be converted to digital? Of course the subcontract never retains any of
that information. Anyone care to bet on this?

With so much of the tech support going overseas, what do you think
happens when they need to access some ones network remotely to fix problems?
They give some tech on the other end of the phone line a user name and
password. Once the work is done that access should be cancelled, but is it
always. What about systems with ongoing problems, do they recreate and
access account every time or just leave the old one up, "Because we'll be
calling them again in a day or two." Often time the human aspect is the
most insecure part of the system. Hackers have used this for years to gain
access to networks, and systems.

There is much work to be done to secure the information out there on
even the most inconspicuous citizen on the street. Sending or giving access
to those outside the control of US laws and regulations is not going to
improve that situation.

KC

Post by Terry Lomax
http://in.news.yahoo.com/040110/43/2atrx.html
Saturday January 10, 11:17 AM
Missouri lawmaker moves legislation against outsourcing jobs to India
By Vasantha Arora, Indo-Asian News Service
Washington, Jan 10 (IANS) A Missouri state senator has sponsored
legislation to ensure that government contractors do not ship tech
call centre jobs to India or other countries but employ only locals
for the purpose.
Republican Senator Chuck Gross' legislation takes strong objection to
foreign workers collecting personal information about Missourians and
requires such contractors to complete work for the state within the
United States. The provision would also apply to subcontractors.
"Personal information" is defined as identifying factors beyond a
person's name, phone number and address, including things such as
Social Security numbers or medical and financial information.
Gross filed the legislation for the session that began Wednesday.
Though he said it's not the reason, the bill comes after one state
contractor moved its customer call centre to India, angering some
legislators.
Gross said his main concern is protecting residents' privacy,
especially for things such as Social Security numbers, and to prevent
identity theft.
"We seem to, on the one hand, want to safeguard personal information
and we set up laws and statutes to do that," Gross said in a press
statement.
"And yet we don't seem to have the same level of concern in government
when we pick contractors. Once our information leaves this country,
our laws don't protect it."
Gross said the legislation probably would cover situations such as
customer call centers moving overseas.
Some legislators, including Gross, have raised concerns because
Scottsdale, Arizona-based eFunds Corp., which handles Missouri's
electronic benefit cards for food stamps and welfare, switched its
call centre in 2002 from the United States to India.
By then it was too late to request a Missouri-based call centre as
part of a new five-year contract -- valued at around $6 million
annually -- that began last year.
"A lot of times we put policies in place that seem to be
counterproductive. On the one hand we want the lowest and best price
on contracts we let. On the other hand, we say not if contracts are
going to lead to certain things -- one of those is contracts in
foreign countries," Gross said.
The Missouri Office of Administration Commissioner has already made it
known that while awarding future contracts, the state will ask bidders
whether they plan to perform any work overseas and then make its
decision.