In the era of digital payments, cybercrime and privacy violations have emerged as one of the biggest threats to customers. It has now emerged that even data providers have allegedly been selling people’s data for a few thousand rupees. The cybercrime unit of the Haryana Police has uncovered data theft allegedly perpetrated by data provider agencies like Just Dial. They have been accused of selling information about people to fake call centre operators.
Data like personal details and phone numbers were allegedly sold without verification, which led to around 150 people being cheated of lakhs of rupees by fraudsters on the pretext of insurance policy renewal.
The role of the data provider agencies came to light after the Gurugram Police nabbed two people who were running a fraudulent call centre for insurance renewals. The arrest came following a complaint lodged by a woman who claimed that some unknown caller had duped her of Rs 50,000 on the pretext of getting her insured.
The modus operandi
According to the police, data provider agencies have access to information like user’s name, address, email, phone numbers and online interests. By fraudulently selling this information for crores, some unscrupulous data service providers have been violating people’s privacy and making them vulnerable to cyber fraud.
ACP-Crime Preet Pal Singh Sangwan reportedly named Just Dial as one such errant data service provider that had sold user data for mere Rs 15,000. Police sources said that a notice would be sent to Just Dial in this regard.
Even as the probe into the insurance fraud was being conducted, another fake call centre scam was busted by the Cyber Crime wing of Delhi Police last week. Eight people, including three people, were arrested in the racket, which duped around 100-odd people to the tune of Rs 30 lakh on the pretext of providing them with jobs.
The probe revealed that the call centre had been operating for two years and that user data was purchased from a data provider to target individuals.