Much more than jobs being outsourced.Along with American jobs exported overseas, individuals' personal data is often sent to countries that lack consumer privacy laws.A growing number of U.S. medical and financial-services farms are shifting information-processing work to lower-wage countries that lack tough privacy laws, leaving their consumers vulnerable to identity theft and possibly other crimes. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Gartner, offshore business process outsourcing Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the contracting of a specific business task, such as payroll, to a third-party service provider. Usually, BPO is implemented as a cost-saving measure for tasks that a company requires but does not depend upon to maintain its position in services, which typically require the transfer of personal data, grew 38 percent last year to just under $2 billion. Concerns include overseas call-center workers being able to view or manipulate personal records stored in U.S. data centers and having databases of information on their citizens physically located in a foreign country and operated by a third party. "Outside the U.S., medical privacy doesn't really mean anything" said California Sen. Liz Figueroa Liz Figueroa is a Democratic politician. She served as a California State Senator, representing the 10th district. She ran for California Lieutenant Governor in the June 6th, 2006 California primary election, against fellow state senator Jackie Speier, and Insurance , who wants to bar offshore outsourcing Offshore outsourcing is the practice of hiring an external organization to perform some business functions in a country other than the one where the product or service will be sold or consumed. of medical and financial records. She is sponsoring bills to require California employers to notify the state and employees if they plan to move 20 or more jobs overseas and to prohibit state contracts from being fulfilled offshore. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has asked the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Comptroller of the Currency A government official, appointed by the President of the United States, who keeps control over all national banks, and receives reports from the banks at least quarterly, to be published in newspapers. to investigate whether banks that process customers' financial data offshore have safeguards to protect that data from unauthorized use. In Arizona, proposed legislation would bar companies from shipping financial data outside the country without written permission from consumers. A proposal in South Carolina South Carolina, state of the SE United States. It is bordered by North Carolina (N), the Atlantic Ocean (SE), and Georgia (SW). Facts and Figures Area, 31,055 sq mi (80,432 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,012,012, a 15. would prevent companies from giving "financial, credit, or identifying information" to a call center representative abroad without the individual's written permission. Executives who are counting on offshore operations to lower their costs say safeguards are in place to protect individuals' privacy. Critics say privacy cannot be guaranteed in offshore settings. According to privacy advocates, contract language and security technology are not enough to protect the confidentiality of personal data that has been moved offshore. For example, last year, a disgruntled dis·grun·tle tr.v. dis·grun·tled, dis·grun·tling, dis·grun·tles To make discontented. [dis- + gruntle, to grumble (from Middle English gruntelen; see Pakistani worker upset about back pay threatened to divulge data about patients at a San Francisco hospital that sent its transcription work abroad, according to Information Week. |
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