Originally published July 8 2005
Offshoring of personal information creates new personal privacy risks
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Federal Observer recently featured a post about the failure of the government and private companies to protect citizens' personal information.
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, CA there have been close to 60 reported security breaches of customer financial information from United States corporations thus far in 2005, involving 13.5 million customers' identities.
While most lost data has involved data storage tapes lost in transit by courier services or UPS, others involved computer security breaches.
And as corporate America looks for ways to shore up its security problems rather than face the wrath of Congress, an even more unwieldy problem is brewing abroad.
Coming to light is that various U.S. government programs and states are utilizing more and more offshore subcontractors in addition to those corporate entities which indirectly do business with the U.S. government.
But unknown to the American consumer or taxpayer is the threat of theft of an individual's identity and financial resources which remain largely unprotected without the ability to enforce U.S. law on foreign land.
The U.S Department of Agriculture defers to the states to run food stamp programs, with as many as 43 states offshoring call-centers to India even though federal law dictates that only U.S. government workers should handle the job.
The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) which protects the health information of a patient and prevents healthcare companies from selling such information to third parties such as telemarketing firms, does not limit nor prohibit the transfer of information to overseas locations for third party subcontracted services.
In the U.S., the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which applies to financial institutions as well as accounting firms engaged in the practice of tax preparation requires that firms design, implement and put safeguards in place in order to maintain protection of customer information.
Yet to date the Federal Trade Commission has not levied any punishment or fine on any U.S. accounting firm with regard to overseas outsourcing practices and the lack of notification of such to customers.
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