855. SHRI KUNWAR PUSHPENDRA SINGH CHANDEL:
SHRIMATI MALA RAJTA LAXMI SHAH:
Will the Minister of WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT be pleased to state:
(a) whether Government has taken cognizance of indecent and vulgar depiction of women on various digital platform including Over-the-Top (OTT);
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) the corrective/ preventive measures being taken by the Government in this regard?
ANSWER
MINISTER OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
(SHRIMATI SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)
(a) to (b) “Police” and “Public Order” are State subjects as per the Constitution of India. States/UTs are primarily responsible for prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of crimes through their law enforcement machinery. These law enforcement machinery/agencies under the Governments of respective States/UTs take cognizance of indecent and vulgar depiction of women and take legal action as per provisions of law against persons involved in indecent and vulgar depiction of women on various digital platform, including Over-the-Top.
(c) The details of corrective/preventive measures taken are placed at Annexure.
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Annexure
1. Ministry of Home Affairs has approved a scheme namely ‘Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)’ under which an online Cyber Crime reporting portal, (www.cybercrime.gov.in) has been launched to enable public to report complaints pertaining to rape/gang rape imageries or sexually explicit content, Child Pornography/ Child Sexual Abuse Material. This portal facilitates the public to lodge complaints anonymously or through Report and track option. Steps have also been taken to spread awareness, issue of alerts/advisories, training of law enforcement agencies, improving cyber forensic facilities etc. These steps help to prevent such cases and speed up investigation. Cyber Crime awareness campaign has been launched through twitter handle (@CyberDost) and radio across the country. Awareness generation programmes and publicity campaigns are done on various laws relating to women and their rights through workshops, cultural programmes, seminars, training programmes, advertisements including in print and electronic /digital media.
2. Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 (21 of 2000) has provisions regarding cheating by personation (section 66D), violation of privacy (section 66E), publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form (section 67), publishing or transmitting material containing sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form (section 67A), publishing or transmitting material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form (section 67B) etc. Rule 3 (2) (b) of Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011 provides for an obligation for Intermediaries (Social media platforms) to inform users of computer resources not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous defamatory, obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, etc.
3. Ministry of Women and Child Development has created a dedicated e-mail ([email protected]) to address and resolve the issues of hateful conduct and stalking on Social Media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook with effect from July, 2016.