Mumbai: An American IT industry body believes that concerns over outsourcing in the US were not likely to recede after the presidential elections.

"Outsourcing leading to job losses is not the real issue, even though concern for jobs moving to other parts of the world is looming large; the main issue is protection of privacy and security," Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) president Harris N Miller said in Mumbai on Monday (Oct 11, 2004).

ITAA is the US equivalent of India's National Association for Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), and is engaged in formulating IT policies and liaisoning with the Government.

Moving jobs to developing nations would raise a security issue as financial and health data of Americans would be processed halfway across the world, he said.

"Somebody might put the medical records of Vice-President Dick Cheney or the financial data of Oprah Winfrey on the Net," Miller, who is also the president of World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), said.

As different laws govern different countries, detection and prevention would not be easy, he said. "Cyber security is a global challenge, which has to be addressed on a war-footing".

At present, security and privacy are the main concerns for a US firm outsourcing work to India and other developed nations, Miller added.