US contractor fined $3.1mn for outsourcing work to India

March 25, 2016 10:13

<strong>PTI's Yoshita Singh reports from New York:</strong> A US contractor here has been ordered to pay a hefty fine of $3.1 million for illegally outsourcing government-funded work to a subcontractor based in India.

Focused Technologies Imaging Services, its sole owner Charles Tobin and former co-owner Julie Benware agreed to pay the penalty and fees under an agreement with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after admitting that they violated New York federal laws by illegally outsourcing the work to a subcontractor based in Mumbai in 2008 and 2009.

Authorities said the Indian company, which was unaware it had got the work illegally, fully and voluntarily cooperated with the investigation.

The agreement arises from a $3.45 million contract in 2008-2009 between the New York State Industries for the Disabled and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services to digitise and index approximately 22 million fingerprint cards into a searchable database.

The cards contained critical personal data including Social Security numbers, date of birth and basic physical characteristics.

Focused paid the Indian company just over $82,000 for this indexing between October 2008 and September 2009.

Authorities stressed that there is no evidence the Indian company nor any of its employees, knew it had obtained the work illegally. They said the outsourcing was illegal because Focused sent personal information of over 16 million people to the Mumbai-based subcontractor that was unauthorised to receive this information.

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