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Jun 25, 2005

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The weakest link...

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Dear Friends,

Thanks to Kiran Bahree, we are back on the privacy-security track.
Personally, I feel "sting operations" are stage managed - and
relevance is lacking. In this case, the data neither belonged to
the current employer or the previous employers.

But alarms apart, do we really check the weakest link in the
security chain - the human factor - as thoroughly as we should?
Card scanners, biometric scanners, close circuit cameras, et
all, can only achieve so much!

Are we properly scrutinizing the people we hire? And I do not mean
a background check by an outsourced agency. Do we grade our people
for integrity, in annual appraisals and recruitment interviews?

And finally, are all the Indians who are involved in outsourced
projects really in tune with the way work is done abroad, and the
imperative security measures related to the information they
handle?

Fortunately for us, MT is considered as a profession and a career
path compared to "stop-gap" job in a contact center, so we do have
a motivated and responsible workforce. But the compromise need not
necessarily come from an MT - there are always support staff who
have better access to data.

Expose your staff for better data security. Data security and human
intervention can never be mutually exclusive.

The Indian IT industry, under the auspices of NASSCOM, is:

- Working with the Government to introduce amendments to the Indian
IT Act that will make life even more difficult for criminals;
- Training and supporting Indian law enforcement agencies to ensure
that they are well equipped to tackle cyber crime;
- Establishing a register of IT professionals to ensure that only
suitable staff are employed in the industry.

The Indian IT companies do not want to merely match worldwide
standards in security. They want to set the very highest
standards."

Ciao!

Maj (Dr) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.mtindia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Indian call centre 'fraud' probe

The Sun claims one of its journalists bought personal details
including passwords, addresses and passport data from a Delhi IT
worker for £4.25 each. But, in a BBC interview, the worker named by
the paper denied the claims. He said he had been asked to make a
presentation about his company by someone described as an associate
of the Sun's reporter. He said the associate then asked him to give
a CD to the reporter, but that he did not know what was on the CD
and did not receive any payment.
India's top software body said India was a "trustworthy" location
and would treat the claims "extremely seriously". The National
Association of Software and Service Companies said it would work
with authorities in the UK and India to ensure criminals were
"promptly prosecuted and face the maximum penalty".

Meanwhile, India's information technology and communications
minister said the government had nothing to do with the "freak"
incident, and would step in only if legally required.

A police spokeswoman said officers were not yet aware of "the
breadth of what we are going to be investigating".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4121934.stm

2) RP to implement law to help infocom tech industry

THE government will strictly implement Republic Act 8792 or the
E-Commerce Act, in response to the call of the information and
communications technology (ICT) industry to maintain a policy
environment conducive to ICT.

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Juan Santos
believes that the strict implementation of the provisions of RA
8792 will help address many of the industry's concerns, especially
data security or privacy.

In one of the sessions of the Cebu ICT 2005, National Association
of Software and Service Companies (Nass-com) president Kiran Karnik
indirectly urged the Philippine government to strictly implement
laws on intellectual property rights, saying security of data is
one of the reasons why many multinational companies trust India
with their back-office operations.

Addressing human resource requirements and maintaining a policy
environment conducive to ICT are among the concerns that the
government can address to help ICT businesses expand further.

Some of the steps that the DTI will take to address human resource
requirements include the promotion of specific skills and training
and vendor-specific education in technical schools; and the
creation of a national and regional experts panel working group
within universities, which will include members of the IT industry,
to constantly review the programs and curricula of students to
ensure that they reflect the requirements of the industry.

The DTI will also establish skills competency standards for contact
center, medical transcription, animation and software development.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2005/06/27/bus/rp.to.implement.law.to.help.\
infocom.tech.industry.html

3) Kaiser Permanente fined $200k for patient data breach

The California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has fined
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, a division of Kaiser Permanente,
$200,000 for exposing the confidential health information of about
150 people. The DMHC said the information had been available on a
publicly accessible Web site for as long as four years.

"Patients must be assured that health plans will, at all costs, do
everything possible to protect confidential information," Cindy
Ehnes, director of the DMHC, said in a statement. "As we work on
broadening the use of electronic medical records to improve patient
care on both the state and federal levels, health plans must make
security of confidential information a top priority."

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,102665,00.htm\
l

4) MedQuist's CodeRunner makes life a little easier

Coders at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, MA are 30% more
productive and have doubled their coding workload since using
CodeRunner-a new computer assisted remote coding solution-that
MedQuist developed and introduced on the market in 2002.

South Shore Hospital began using the software in June 2003.
CodeRunner allows coders to review a suggested list of codes and
choose the one they feel is most appropriate for that particular
medical record. They can also make any coding changes they need to.

"It's so much faster. Once we view and make edits, we just click on
'ready to bill' and move on to the next chart," Brad Miller, an
emergency department coder at South Shore Hospital, told PR
Newswire.

The software completely integrates computer-assisted coding (CAC),
document imaging, and expert coding services. Terry Cameron,
MedQuist's senior vice president of marketing, told PR Newswire
that the software transforms transcription and voice recognition
files from static documentation into active data files that the
entire organization can use. "Once the Natural Language Processing
(NLP) engine 'reads' the documents, codes are stored for
computer-assisted coding and, ultimately, data mining.
Transcription becomes a valuable asset instead of a dead-end
process," he told the publication.

http://www.justcoding.com/article.php?articleID=830

5) Philippines Seen To Remain Significant Player In Asian ICT Field

Trade Secretary Juan B. Santos stressed that the Philippines, now
at pace with its Asian neighbors, is undertaking initiatives to
maintain the reputation of the country as a significant player in
the Asian ICT field. In the Philippines, the stage is set. Notable
are the countrys considerable strengths the quality of our human
resources, our competitive infrastructure, our cultural affinity
with the west and continuous government support. These strengths,
if properly harnessed should sustain us in the long run, Santos
said.

Santos likewise said incremental employment generated from IT
service industries such as contact centers, medical transcription,
and software development reach almost 28,000 while total employment
was an impressive 100,000.

As the Philippines poised itself as a major player in the
IT-enabled services sector (ITES), Secretary Santos said the
Philippines is working together with its neighbors in order to
capitalize on the total ITES global market. Santos proposed
measures to further strengthen Asias foothold as global center for
IT by working towards advancing the national agenda in the
facilitation of movement of natural persons across borders,
harmonize and adopt common standards in all IT-services areas,
strict enforcement of intellectual property rights protection, and
sharing of best practices among industry in the area of training
and technology.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/050624/3/uuhw.html
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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