Question : Cyber Crime against Children

(a) whether the Government has taken note of growing incidents of cyber crime targeting children in the country, if so, the details thereof indicating the number of such incidents reported during each of the last three years and the current year, State/UT-wise;
(b) whether the Government has also taken note that lack of digital literacy and online safety measures expose children to hazards of cyber crime and if so, the efforts made to deal with the problem of online child sexual abuse material so as to check cyber crime against children;
(c) whether the Government has constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee to curb the menace of online child sexual abuse material and if so, the details thereof;
(d) whether the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has enhanced the scope of POCSO e-box to lodge complaints of cyber crime and handle cyber bullying/stalking, morphing of images and child pornography and if so, the details thereof; and
(e) whether the Government also plans to establish a National Alliance against Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, focussing primarily on online content and if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT
(SHRIMATI KRISHNA RAJ)

(a) As per ‘Crime in India’ published by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the number of incidents of cyber crime targeting children in the country reported during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 under the Information Technology Act, 2000, Indian Penal Code, 1860 are 5693, 9622 and 11592 respectively. The cyber crime cases reported under Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act, 2012 during the year 2014 and 2015 are 40 and 94 respectively.







The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has also received two complaints of cyber crime against children through its POCSO e-Box from Uttar Pradesh one each during the year 2016-17 and the year 2017-18. The State/UT-wise details of cases are given at Annexure

(b) In order to curb Child Pornography, Government of India had taken the following initiatives :

I. Blocking based on Interpol List : Interpol’s “Worst of List” on online Child Sexual Abuse Materials(CSAM) being blocked regularly. Last blocking has been done in June 2017 and around 3522 number of websites has been blocked.

II. Blocking based on Internet Watch Foundation(IWF) List :
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology have issued an order for disabling/removing access to child pornography sites to adopt and implement IWF Resources within 31.07.2017 to prevent the distribution and transmission of online CSAM into India.

III. Parental Control Filters :
Department of Telecommunications has communicated to all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to spread awareness among their subscribers about the use of Parental Control filters in the end user machines through messages of email invoices SMS, websites, etc.

(c) An inter-ministerial committee was constituted to discuss the issues related to online child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and its blocking in India on 29.12.2016. Govt. have issued an order to Internet Service Providers(ISPs) through Dept. of Telecommunications and Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) to adopt and implement IWF list on or before 31.07.2017 to prevent the distribution and transmission of Online CSAM into India.

(d) NCPCR has enhanced the scope of POCSO E-Box to handle cyber crimes against children. All stakeholders are sensitized through print media to use POCSO E-Box.

(e) The Ministry of Women and Child Development has created a dedicated e-mail( [email protected]) solely to address and resolve the issues of hateful conduct and stalking on Social Media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook etc with effect from July, 2016. It is reported to Twitter India and cyber crime cells of the police authorities. So far, 97 complaints were received against online stalking, abuse on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Email, etc. which are dealt with as per the rules.

*****