Leader: Why India scandal isn't a case of 'told you so'

News today that an undercover reporter from The Sun newspaper was able to buy the details of 1,000 British bank accounts has understandably been met with outrage and disbelief in equal measure.

But we can't help thinking that underpinning much of the eagerness with which this news has been picked up is a desire among a great many people to say 'I told you so', with a satisfaction on their part gained from the fact that it's now been proven beyond doubt that Indians can't be trusted with the responsibility that offshoring brings - and therefore the whole trend is fatally flawed.

Of course this isn't the case. What it proves is that for a year's salary somebody with a criminal inclination will betray whatever data they have access to.

Let's not pretend the same wouldn't be true of similar individuals in a UK call centre. There are good and bad in all societies. The only thing which can be attributed to the specifics of this case - that it occurred in a call centre in India - is the fact a year's pay is less there than in some other parts of the world and therefore the margins are greater for the criminals buying the lists.

What the banks need to be doing is working more rigorously to ensure staff anywhere within their organisation cannot commit these kinds of crimes. Fortunately when the dust settles on the more emotive aspects of this case, it appears it will indeed be the banks which face scrutiny - not the business model.

One anti-fraud expert within a UK bank unaffected by this scandal explained that his company makes all call centre staff go through a strict initiation - a particular feature of which is an exercise where they are confronted with graphic images of the inside of an Indian prison and are told in no uncertain terms they will end up there if they steal data.

It sounds like a strange tactic but has apparently been very successful, as has a rigorous enforcing of rules which forbid any removable media or storage devices from entering the data environment and a ban on print-outs and paper exiting the call centre.

So let's keep our eye on the real issue - that companies need to protect data more effectively - rather than assuming this is flimsy proof that some people just can't be trusted with our data.