Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh chaired a special meeting to review steps taken by the Government and by industry to deal with the challenge of cyber crime and to ensure data secrecy in the business data processing industry. The meeting was held in the context of a recent "media sting operation" involving the employee of a private data processing company, where allegations of breach of data secrecy have been leveled.

Dr Kiran Karnik, director-general, NASSCOM, the national association of software companies, assured the Prime Minister that the Indian data processing industry is fully committed to ensuring the highest standards of data privacy. India's brand equity in this area is very strong, he said, expressing the concern that the recent incident may well have been a "sting operation" directed to give Indian industry a bad name against the background of its growing competitiveness. NASSCOM is building a data base of all employees in the BPO industry to ensure that there is adequate quality assurance.

The PM has asked the Department of Information Technology and NASSCOM to consult all stakeholders and come forward with suggestions for changes in existing laws, if found necessary, to ensure that any breach of secrecy, any illegal transfer of commercial or other privileged information and any other form of cyber crime is made a punishable offence.

The Prime Minister underlined the need to maintain high standards of quality, confidentiality and reliability in the data processing business. He said that Indian professionals have built for themselves an enviable global reputation through hard work, dedication and commitment and the occasional misguided acts of some individuals should not be allowed to damage the high reputation of all professionals.