British businesses must bring their offshore calls centers back to Britain, said anti-fraud specialists Early Warning.

Following Channel 4’s damning Dispatches programme last night, which looked at the theft of consumers’ personal data including credit card and bank details from call centres, Early Warning’s managing director Andrew Goodwill said this crime has serious implications not just for UK consumers but internet traders in general.

"British online traders are losing heavily from the Card Not Present fraud that results from stolen data.

"It is not always appreciated that online merchants – many of them small and vulnerable – are responsible to the banks and other financial institutions for the full cost of the fraud they suffer,” he said.

Costs are often passed on in higher prices to consumers and he said this crime is also probably indirectly funding serious crime like drugs and terrorism.

"But the banks themselves and the call centre companies have largely been indifferent to the seriousness of the problem," he added.

He agreed the problem was not just confined to overseas call centres, but said the safeguards provided by the Data Protection Act (DPA) were a "joke", as this law can’t be used against data thieves in other countries. They can only be enforced against companies and individuals in the UK; the fines that could be imposed were derisory, he added.

The Office of the Information Commissioner admitted that the penalties for breaching the Data Protection Act are not strong enough.

"Currently the fine for breaching the DPA is £5,000 per offence. The OIC wants to see jail terms of at least two years," a representative told Computeractive. He said that the Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) is currently looking at the issue.

However the UK's payments organisation APACS said that although there was no room for complacency, there was no such thing as 100 per cent security.

It said a review of overseas bank call centres earlier this year by the Banking Code Standards Board found that the selection and training of overseas call center staff was “exemplary, as were arrangements for customer privacy and data security”.

But Goodwill pointed out it isn’t just bank call centers but other organisations, because the Channel 4 documentary highlighted one mobile phone company based in the UK.

He said companies should be aware that if the situation continues there will be a consumer backlash.