Date: 26/10/2022

Relevance: GS-2 : Important Aspects of Governance, Issues Related to Children

Key Phrases: Megh Chakra, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Child Sexual Abusive Material (CSAM), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), INHOPE, Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), Aarambh India NGO.

Why in news?

• Recently, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted a pan-India operation, “Megh Chakra” against the online circulation and sharing of Child Sexual Abusive Material (CSAM) using cloud-based storage.

Monitoring of CSAM in India:

• In India, viewing adult pornography in private is not an offense; seeking, browsing, downloading, or exchanging child pornography is punishable under the IT Act.
• However, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are exempted from liability for any third-party data if they do not initiate the transmission.
• As the public reporting of circulation of online CSAM is very low and there is no system of automatic electronic monitoring, India’s enforcement agencies are largely dependent on foreign agencies for the requisite information.

The international effort against CSAM:

• American models:
  • The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a non-profit organization in the United States, operates a program called CyberTipline, for public and electronic service providers (ESPs) to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation.
• British Model:
  • In the United Kingdom, the mission of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a non-profit organization established by the United Kingdom’s Internet industry to ensure a safe online environment for users with a particular focus on CSAM, includes disrupting the availability of CSAM and deleting such content hosted in the U.K.
• INHOPE:
  • INHOPE, a global network of 50 hotlines (46 member countries), provides the public with a way to anonymously report CSAM.
  • It provides secure IT infrastructure, ICCAM (I- “See” (c)-Child-Abuse-Material) hosted by Interpol, and facilitates the exchange of CSAM reports between hotlines and law enforcement agencies.
  • ICCAM is a tool to facilitate image/video hashing/fingerprinting and reduce the number of duplicate investigations.

India’s efforts so far:

• Shreya Singhal case:
  • In India, the Supreme Court of India, in Shreya Singhal (2015), read down Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act to mean that the ISP, only upon receiving actual knowledge of the court order or on being notified by the appropriate government, shall remove or disable access to illegal contents.
  • Thus, ISPs are exempted from the liability of any third-party information.
• Kamlesh Vaswani case:
  • In the Kamlesh Vaswani (WP(C) 177/2013) case, the petitioner sought a complete ban on pornography.
  • After the Court’s intervention, the advisory committee (constituted under Section 88 of the IT Act) issued orders in March 2015 to ISPs to disable nine (domain) URLs that hosted contents in violation of the morality and decency clause of Article 19(2) of the Constitution. The petition is still pending in the Supreme Court.
• Aarambh India NGO:
  • ‘Aarambh India’, a Mumbai-based non-governmental organization, partnered with the IWF and launched India’s first online reporting portal in September 2016 to report images and videos of child abuse.
  • These reports are assessed by the expert team of IWF analysts and offending URLs are added to its blocking list.
  • Till 2018, out of 1,182 reports received at the portal, only 122 were found to contain CSAM.
• National Cybercrime Reporting Portal:
  • The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) launched a national cybercrime reporting portal in September 2018 to file online complaints about child pornography and rape-gang rape.
  • This facility was developed in compliance with Supreme Court directions about public interest litigation filed by Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based NGO that rescues and rehabilitates sex trafficking survivors.
  • Not many cases of child porn and rape were reported, but the portal was later extended to all types of cybercrime.
• CyberTipline reports:
  • The National Crime Records Bureau (MHA) signed a memorandum of understanding with the NCMEC in April 2019 to receive CyberTipline reports to facilitate action against those who upload or share CSAM in India.
  • The NCRB has received more than two million CyberTipline reports which have been forwarded to the States for legal action.
• Rajya Sabha committee:
  • The ad hoc Committee of the Rajya Sabha in its report of January 2020, made wide-ranging recommendations on ‘the alarming issue of pornography on social media and its effect on children and society as a whole’.
  • Key recommendations:
    • On the legislative front:
      • Widening of the definition of ‘child pornography’
      • Proactive monitoring, mandatory reporting, and taking down or blocking CSAM by ISPs.
    • On the technical front:
      • Permitting the breaking of end-to-end encryption
      • Building partnerships with industry to develop tools using artificial intelligence for dark-web investigations
      • Tracing the identity of users engaged in cryptocurrency transactions to purchase child pornography online
      • Liaisoning with financial service companies to prevent online payments for purchasing child pornography

What needs to be done:

• According to the ninth edition (2018) report of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children on “Child Sexual Abusive Material: Model Legislation & Global Review”, more than 30 countries now require mandatory reporting of CSAM by ISPs.
• India also figures in this list, though, the law does not provide for such mandatory reporting.
• It is time India joins INHOPE and establishes its hotline to utilize Interpol’s secure IT infrastructure or collaborate with ISPs and financial companies by establishing an independent facility such as the IWF or NCMEC.
• The Rajya Sabha’s ad hoc Committee’s recommendations should be followed.
• India needs to explore all options and adopt an appropriate strategy to fight the production and the spread of online CSAM. Children need to be saved.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. India needs an appropriate strategy to fight the production, spread, and sharing of online Child Sexual Abusive Material (CSAM). Discuss.