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8 January 2004, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Ershad Shafi Chowdhury,Chief Information Officer Bangladesh Online Limited
8 January 2004, 18:00 PM
I would like to bring to your attention an alarming letter issued by Standard Chartered Bank. I am an account holder of that bank. First I received a letter from them, asking me to provide them with a copy of my passport. This was followed shortly by a phone call from them informing me that the Bangladesh Bank had issued a circular stating that all bank account holders must submit a copy of their passport. Considering the state of the passport office, a circular like this seemed quite ridiculous to me, so I told the gentleman, that should he fax me a copy of that circular, and I would be pleased to give him a copy of my passport.The next day, I received a call again, this time by a well spoken lady, who said there was no such circular but that if I should be so kind to send them a copy of my passport, they would be most grateful for my co-operation so that they could update my records. I promised to do the same by the first week of January.Today, I received another letter from them, and I quote " noticed that the following (highlighted) documents pertaining to your account are not updated with us." Some observations :

1. Nothing is highlighted, so this should not have been sent at all.

2. I called the bank to clarify, they asked me to send EVERYTHING.

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3. There is no "privacy statement" stating how the information I give them will be used.

4. There is nothing stated about what will happen to my account if I don't give them the information.

5. There is no date by which I should submit this information.

6. The information they have asked for seems to be for creating a database for a marketing program or analysing my creditworthiness (e.g. hobby, qualification, length of employment etc.)

Sir, I conclude that innocent account holders of Standard Chartered Bank will provide them with this information, not realizing that they are giving them their personal information for marketing purposes of other corporations (e.g. telemarketers). It is time that a respectable national daily such as yours should prepare consumers not to divulge personal information to anyone without knowing what the information is going to be used for. In the West, consumers are protected from telemarketers by law. But in Bangladesh it would much more difficult to protect consumers from a barrage of phone calls, especially since the consumer is voluntarily giving his information to what appears to be a banking requirement.