Indian call centre staff sell personal data

medical records, to loan data, of more than 500 000 Britons, Hindustan Times writes.

Posing as London businessmen, undercover Sunday Times reporters met two Indians, claiming to be information technology workers at call centres trying to sell confidential personal information.

The two data traders boasted of having 45 different sets of personal information on nearly 500 000 Britons, the Daily Mail reported separately.

Much of the information is related to customers at major financial companies, including HSBC and NatWest, The Economic Times notes.

An Indian named Naresh Singh, who met the undercover reporters in a hotel room in Gurgaon near Delhi, was allegedly carrying a laptop full of data, the report said.

“These are ones that have been sold to somebody already. This is Barclays, this is Halifax, this is Lloyds TSB. We've been dealing so long we can tell the bank by just the card number,” Singh was quoted as saying.

Many British companies have outsourced services to India, but a public backlash over the use of foreign workers has seen some withdrawn, Daily Mail states.

Spanish bank Santander, which owns Abbey, revealed last year it would no longer use Indian call centres.

Indian authorities say their efforts to combat corruption have been hampered by the unwillingness of companies, keen to avoid negative publicity, reporting data losses.