Bangalore: India's software industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today (Jun 10, 2004) said that it has initiated moves to prevent security and privacy issues from becoming the target point of the American anti-outsourcing lobby to scuttle outsourcing to the country's IT firms.

Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said that the industry body was taking a pre-emptive step as part of its "trusted sourcing" initiative to make the country remain dominant as the offshoring destination for global IT firms.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there is some US legislation in a few months which says that you cannot outsource from countries lacking certain security and privacy regulations. We don't wait for that to happen," Karnik said after providing glimpses of the Nasscom report on the security environment of the Indian IT and ITES firms.

The Nasscom chief's concerns comes ahead of the crucial American elections in November this year, where the rival democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry has set outsourcing as one of the key election issues

Fortunately, Karnik said, India has already earned a reputation among global firms for data protection with many organisations having inbuilt security protection standards.