US contractor fined for outsourcing to 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 USD 3.45 million contract in 2008-09 between the New York State Industries for the Disabled (NYSID) and the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), 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 USD 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. Authorities 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. The outsourcing also resulted in the failure of Focused to adhere to a requirement that over 50 per cent of the labour hours of the contract be performed by individuals with disabilities.