With the expansion of internet and more and more Indians coming online, the incidents of cyber crimes against women and children is also increasing. The challenges of cyber space are many which flow from its vastness and borderless character. That is why the government is committed to policies and actions that ensure that Internet in India is always Open, Safe, Trusted and Accountable for all Indians. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) compiles and publishes statistical data on crimes in its publication “Crime in India”. The latest published report is for the year 2020. As per data published by NCRB, a total of 305 and 1102 cases of cyber crime against children were registered during the year 2019 and 2020 respectively. During the same period, the cyber crimes against women have been registered as 8379 and 10405.

 

‘Police’ and ‘Public Order’ are State subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. States/ Union Territories (UTs) are primarily responsible for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes including cyber crime through their Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). These LEAs take legal action as per provisions of law against the offenders. The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the State Governments through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for their capacity building. The Ministry of Women and Child Development takes up the matter with Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) and Ministry of Education for taking appropriate actions to curb the menace and to ensure safety and security of women and young children on online platforms. In order to equip children in negotiating the online world with adequate safety, Ministry of Education was requested to issue necessary directions to Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for incorporating suitable content pertaining to cyber safety in the school curriculum of children and advise State Governments to do the same through their School Boards.

 

To strengthen the mechanism to deal with cyber crimes including crimes against women and children in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, the Central Government has taken measures in consultation with various stakeholders which, inter-alia, include the following:

 

1. Section 67B of the Information Technology ( IT) Act, 2000 provides stringent punishment for publishing, transmitting or viewing Child sexual abuse material online.
2. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 empower the users of Intermediaries and makes the social media platforms accountable for their safety. These Rules require the intermediaries to adopt a robust grievance redressal mechanism including time-bound disposal of grievances. The Intermediaries need to convey their terms and conditions which must include communication to users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is inter alia harmful, defamatory, obscene, invasive of another‟s privacy, harm minors in any way or are otherwise unlawful. Intermediaries are also expected to remove any information violative of any law in India as and when brought to their knowledge either through a court order or through a notice by an appropriate government or its authorised agency. The Rules also require Significant Social media Intermediary (SSMI) to endeavour to deploy technology based measures to proactively identify child sexual abuse material.
3. The Government has established Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under Ministry of Home Affairs, to provide for a framework and ecosystem for LEAs to deal with the cyber crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
4. Under the Nirbhaya Fund, the Government implements a project namely, 'Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)', through which steps for spreading awareness about cyber crimes, issuance of alerts/ advisories, capacity building/ training of law enforcement personnel/ prosecutors/ judicial officers, improving cyber forensic facilities etc. are undertaken.
5. A National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched as a part of the project, to enable public to report incidents of cyber crimes, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.
6. A toll free number 1930 (earlier 155260) has been operationalized for providing assistance in lodging online cyber complaints. Incidents reported on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal are routed automatically to the respective States based on information furnished by the applicant in the incident report for further handling.
7. To spread awareness on cybercrime, MHA has taken several steps that include dissemination of messages on cybercrime through Twitter handle @cyberDost, radio campaign, publishing of Handbook for Adolescents / Students.
8. Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has issued guidelines on 18.08.2017 to schools on the safe and secure use of Internet. This circular directs schools to install effective firewalls, filtering and monitoring software mechanisms in all the computers and deploy effective security policies.
9. MeitY through a program, namely, Information Security Education & Awareness (ISEA), has been creating awareness among users including women and children highlighting the importance of digital safety while using Internet. A dedicated website for information security awareness (https://www.infosecawareness.in) provides relevant awareness material.
10. Government has issued an order to concerned Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ordering them to implement Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), UK or Project Arachnid, Canada list of CSAM websites/ webpages on a dynamic basis and block access to such child pornography webpages/websites.
11. Department of Telecommunications has requested all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to make suitable arrangement to spread awareness among their subscribers about the use of parental control filters in the end-user machines through messages of email, invoices, SMS, website, etc.
12. A MoU is signed between the NCRB, India and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), USA regarding receiving of Tipline report on online child pornography and child sexual exploitation contents from NCMEC. The Tip lines, as received from NCMEC, are being shared with Stats/UTs online through Nation Cybercrime Reporting Portal for taking further action.

 

The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 has a provision to deal with menace of fake calls and messages made through internet as medium. Section 66D of the IT Act, 2000 provides for punishment of imprisonment up to three years and fine for cheating by personation.

 

The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act contains effective provisions to curb the menace of child abuse. The Act provides mandatory reporting, child friendly provisions of recording of statement and evidence and speedy trial of the cases. There are adequate legal penal provisions including POCSO Act, 2012 for the sexual offences against the children, as per the gravity of offences.

 

This information was given by the Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

 

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