Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he had asked the federal police to look into allegations by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that some call centre operators in India were running a black market in identity details gleaned from their work.

In an investigation for its Four Corners television programme, ABC said reporters were offered banking pin numbers, passport numbers, credit card details and other personal information on thousands of Australians for just 10 dollars (7.70 US) each.

The information would enable fraudsters to assume false identities for online transactions, the ABC said in a preview of the programme to be broadcast Monday night.

Ruddock says Australian companies had an obligation to protect the information of its customers and could face penalties if they failed to ensure personal details are secure.

He said he was unaware of any evidence of customers' details being sold, but wanted the allegations followed up.

"I've asked for the Australian Federal Police to examine whether this is an issue that they should investigate," he said.

"And they are certainly very much aware of the Four Corners program and we'll see what further information it provides tonight," he said.

Former World Bank cyber intelligence expert Tom Kellerman is quoted in the ABC programme as saying that cyber fraud was the most pervasive crime in the world.

"Organised crime has created a business model around hacking," he said, adding that the Internet was becoming "more hostile" every day.

One call centre user, Keith Poole, told the programme that an operator working for Australian company Switch Mobile asked him for his passport number, which he refused to provide.

Switch Mobile spokesman Damien Kay said passport information was not needed and the company was shocked that privacy laws were being flouted by its representative in India.

"The issue of personal information being sold goes way outside of our authorisation in the contracts that we have," he told ABC.

Four Corners said the information it was offered appeared to have come from a call centre based in the Indian city of Gurgaon.

Kiran Karnik, president of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies, told the programme that India was among the safest processing hubs around.

"I can assure every Australian customer and consumer whose data is being processed or handled in India that in a comparative sense at least this is among the safest places," he said.

"This industry as a whole, despite some breaches, has been fairly good."

An increasing number of large companies around the world use call centres in low-wage countries such as India to receive or make phone calls on their behalf.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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