Mumbai: 2 booked by cops on charges of data theft

A tech firm has lodged a case of data theft against two of its employees. The company suspects that the accused had stolen the data and had provided it to the rivals, in exchange for money.

According to the Bangur Nagar police, the complainant in the case works as a Facility Administrator in the company, situated at Chincholi Bunder in Malad (W). As per the complainant, in March 2020, the employees of the company were doing Work From Home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In November last year, a client of the company from Australia had informed the company through an email that from June 2020 till June 2021, a lot of company's customer data consisting name, date of birth, driving license number etc, and suspected that two employees working as customer relation advisors had stolen the said data and had provided it to someone abroad. The client also asked the company to conduct an enquiry of the two employees and take legal action," the FIR stated.

"When the company made enquiries with the employees, one of them stated that in June 2020 he was approached by a few persons over the phone and informed him that if he would provide customer data of the company, then he would get money for each data provided. He then began providing data to the said persons. When the demand for data increased, the said employee then roped in his colleague and they both began stealing the data," stated the FIR.

"We are probing how much data had been stolen and how much money the accused persons have generated through this criminal act. We are also probing who were the suspected rivals who approached the accused asking them to provide the data," said a police officer.

The company then took their written statements and terminated them from the service in December 2021. The police have registered a case on Wednesday against the two suspects on charges of acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention, criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant, computer-related offences, penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy and punishment for disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract.