British police sought help from Interpol on Friday, after a newspaper reported that one of its undercover reporters bought personal data on 1,000 British customers from an Indian call-center employee.
Karan Bahree, an employee at Infinity eSearch, a Web designing company in Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb that has become a hub of outsourcing companies, did not report to work Friday but denied any wrongdoing.
Bahree "says he is innocent ... he told us that he was only trying to make a presentation to someone," said Deepak Masih, lawyer for Infinity eSearch. The company said that it had nothing to do with the scandal and that it had given Bahree, on probation for three months in the company, until Friday evening to formally explain his role.
"We face (a) jurisdiction issue," London Police spokeswoman Orna Joseph told the private NDTV news channel. "We cannot charge anybody in India. So we are working through the Interpol so that Indian police can speak to the people involved."
India's information technology minister said the government would not intervene.
"It is a matter between a company and its employees. It is also a subject matter between the call-center company and the company which has given this contract," Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran told reporters.
The allegations have put India's money-spinning outsourcing industry - with the largest share of call center business in the world - into a corner over whether the customer data to which it has access is safe.
The Sun newspaper said it paid 3.00 pounds ($5.40) each for details on the Britons' bank accounts, credit cards, passports and drivers' licenses, including numbers and pass codes. Addresses and phone numbers were also included, the tabloid said.
Scores of Western firms farm out office functions such as telemarketing, call-center operations, payroll accounting, and credit-card processing to companies in countries such as India, where wages are low and skilled professionals are abundant.
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