Nurturing Responsible Young Netizens through Digital Civics : Daily Current Affairs

Date: 10/12/2022

Relevance: GS-3: Role of Media and Social Networking Sites in Internal Security Challenges, Basics of Cyber Security.

Key Phrases: Cyber Hygiene, Digital Civics, NCRB, Youngest youth Demographics, Online interactions, Digital platforms, Protectors, Mass panic, Technology-facilitated Abuse, Evidence-based Discussion, Safety tools and Features, Societal cooperation, Digital Citizen.

Context:

India has one of the youngest youth demographics in the world and is among the most active online.
As online interactions increase, more and more content is created and shared among people, helping them form new and wonderful connections.
Sometimes, however, these interactions also make them vulnerable to harm.

Key Highlights

The digital domain in India has undergone massive expansion since the introduction of internet services in India in the 1980s.
With more than 700 million users, India constitutes the second-largest internet user base globally, after China.
As per the NCRB Data, A total of 50,035 cases in 2020 were registered under cyber crimes, showing an increase of 11.8 per cent in registration over 2019 (44,735 cases).

Challenges in the Digital Space

Though cyberspace and digital tools have opened many opportunities for the young netizens, it has also raised many security and safety challenges. Some of them are as followings-
Lack an understanding of Cyber Hygiene and Digital Civics
- Many of the first-generation users lack an understanding of cyber hygiene and digital civics.
- This deficiency of digital civics and cyber hygiene amplifies the risks and harms inherent in ever-advancing digital technology.
Cyber Crimes Against Women
- Women were particularly severely hit by this upsurge in cyber offences.
  - According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there was a rise in cybercrimes against women—a 110-percent increase in the publication of sexually explicit content from 2018 to 2021 in India.
- Likewise, cases of cyberstalking and bullying of women rose from 739 in 2018 to 1,172 in 2021.
- Even more worrying was the pendency percentage of cases at the court level related to women cases.
Rise in cases of Cyberbullying
- With the unprecedented global health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, malicious actors found an opportunity to step up their activities by targeting vulnerable groups like young internet users.
- Therefore, it is no surprise that the pandemic saw a rise in online scams and phishing, misinformation and online trolling, and most importantly, cyberbullying, continuing the trend of earlier years.

Efforts Undertaken

Information Security Education and Awareness Project Phase II
- It was approved by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in 2014 with the objective of spreading mass awareness through direct and indirect means about information security.
- Under this project, MeitY developed a website and devised separate guidelines and e-books for all the stakeholders—academics, general users, and government employees to focus on educating about hate crimes, cyberstalking, morphing, doxing, online trolling, cyber flashing, digital parenting, etc.
Development of Cyber Safety Manual
- In 2020, the Central Board of Secondary Education in collaboration with the Cyber Peace Foundation developed a cyber safety manual for high school students to help them develop safe and healthy online habits.
Research
- Leading academics are spearheading research around the topic to discuss the evolution of technology-facilitated abuse.
New IT Rules
- New IT rules have shown concern regarding the safety and security of users, particularly women and children.
- With the overhaul of the IT Act, there is an opportunity to discuss in detail the nature of technology-facilitated abuse.
- This could be the start of an era of an evidence-based discussion.

The IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021

About
- The New Information Technology (IT) Rules ensure the online safety and dignity of women users and give a framework to deal with content, including fake content, which results in heinous crimes.
Features
- Imposes several obligations on online entities including appointing grievance redressal officers and assisting in investigations.
- Provides a set of checks and balances for the removal of unlawful content and information on the internet.
- Empower the ordinary users of social media digital platforms and make intermediaries, including the social media intermediaries, accountable.
  - Intermediaries shall remove or disable access within 24 hours of receipt of complaints of contents that exposes the private areas of individuals, show such individuals in full or partial nudity or a sexual act or is in the nature of impersonation including morphed images, etc.

Way Forward

Many in civil society highlighted the importance of academic institutions in imparting knowledge and instilling a sense of digital citizenship among young internet users.
As the digital age and the demographic dividend opportunity coincide, it becomes imperative that the young population of India is trained and taught about cyber hygiene and digital civics.
- Cyber hygiene is awareness about what to do and not do in cyberspace including the internet and social media platforms.
  - It refers to the steps and practices undertaken to ensure the safety of internet users and protect their data from cyber criminals and other rogue elements.
- Digital civics refers to ethical and responsible civic behavior, citizenship, or democratic engagement in the digital domain—one which recognises the critical role played by every individual user in making online spaces safe for everyone.
  - It plays a complementary role to the steps taken by government agencies to enhance cybersecurity.
- The primary focus of efforts to enhance cybersecurity should be on cyber hygiene because proper cyber hygiene practices could help mitigate 80-90 percent of all known threats.
India lacks a comprehensive course/curriculum for students for creating awareness of cybersecurity, cyber hygiene, and information security.
- Therefore, creating a mandatory digital civics programme for schools and colleges is necessary to help young people develop cyber hygiene and online civic sense.
- This will enable them to understand the importance of responsible behavior to protect themselves and others.
Platforms need to design choices that help women stay in control of who they engage with.
- They should leverage open-source technology that detects and blurs lewd images so that women don’t need to see unsolicited pictures.
There is a need to upgrade the existing cyber cells by setting up dark web monitoring cells and social media monitoring cells to tackle different types of cyber along with traditional police recruitments, there is a need to induct technical experts into the police force.
Users need to go beyond protecting their log-in details and one-time-passwords (OTPs) and enable safety measures such as two-factor authentication.
- This feature can be an effective safeguard against unauthorized access to online accounts; however, very few use it.

Conclusion

As our reliance on the internet grows, cybersecurity awareness focusing on digital civics and cyber hygiene is the best way to participate safely online and raise responsible netizen.
To reap the benefits of the young demography in the digital age, it becomes essential for the young population in India to become effective ‘Digital Citizens’ of India.

Source: ORF Online

Mains Question:

Q. “To ensure that the youth become effective ‘Digital Citizens’ of India, cybersecurity awareness focusing on digital civics and cyber hygiene needs to be imparted”. Critically Analyse the statement. (250 Words)