Indian Consulate in San Francisco has Information Security Breach

New American Media has reported that the Indian Consulate in San Francisco is in damage control following a San Francisco Chronicle report revealing that that piles of visa applications containing personal information were found in a recycling center with open public access. The report said the boxes contained confidential paperwork for virtually everyone in California and other Western states who applied for visas to travel to India between 2002 and 2005.

NAM reports that news of the data dumping comes at a time when there is growing concern in the U.S. about identity theft, and concern in particular about data security in India following recent reports of data theft in outsourcing operations there.

Consul General B.S. Prakash, in his defense, said they didn’t consider the documents confidential, “We would see something as confidential if it has a Social Security number or a credit card number, not a passport number.” Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Ronen Sen, however, disagreed: “I am appalled,” he said “What has happened is inexcusable.” Calling the dumping of documents “totally unacceptable,” he assured that “immediate remedial measures had been taken,” and pledged that “it will never recur again.”