Outsourcing and Data Theft

One of the emerging major challenges faced by companies engaged in BPO is the issue of data theft.

Imagine, you're in a building housing servers containing information owned by several different companies. The information can be in the form of financial, marketing, and personal information of customers.

The urge to make illegal use of such information is high, and some have already succumbed to the temptation:

Data Lost Again....Citigroup loses data on 3.9 million customers
Information lost covers customer names, social security numbers, and payment history information.

Woman arrested in data theft in BPO
Customer data was stolen from a BPO company in order to divert deals to other BPO companies.

It truly is quite a challenge because there are customers who are worried that their data might end up in the hands of their competitors, and now there's the concern that the data may find its way to other BPO companies.

Information is a major corporate asset. It would be interesting to see how this can be safeguarded in the months to come.

[ First posted on 11/08/2005 by Manuel Viloria ]