This article reminds me of what happened to me last night. I was calling the company that holds my student loans to find out how much I still owed and when the payments needed to start -- the company will remain unnamed, but they're the biggest company that supplies loans to students of higher education.
Now, wouldn't you expect that a company that handles so many US students and deals with US higher education and is under the scrutiny of the US government have a staff entirely of US residents? Alas, they still are under the constraints of the economy and look to cut costs wherever possible.
I have to say that I suspect their customer service center (call center) is situated offshore in India. I have no direct proof, purely anecdotal, but it's highly suspect -- the contact person had an accent and there was a noticeable delay between my answers and the response. I have a few concerns about this: 1) as the attendant is tapping away at the computer, is s/he accessing this information halfway across the world and if so, does this mean ALL my personal information is stored or accessible outside of the US? This is highly likely; 2) how secure are the communications, then, if they're being sent around the world? If the phone conversation is being conveyed via VoIP over the internet, is the voice communication secure?
I realize that being such a large company, they must have taken into consideration all these aspects. But short of announcing that they put in certain safeguards, how are we really supposed to know for sure? What laws are in place to ensure that such communications and data dissemination is secure, especially if it's being sent out of the country?
Posted by johnvu at October 28, 2004 10:32 AM