Relevance: GS-1: Role of women and women’s organization, Communalism /GS-2: Laws and institutions and bodies created for protection of vulnerable sections /GS-3: Role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges

Key phrases: Auction, GitHub, gender-based violence, open-source, Stalking, Morphing, Spoofing, Voyeurism.

Why in News?

• The Indian Women's Press Corps termed the 'Bulli Bai' app "a well-planned conspiracy" to persecute the minority and promote gender-based violence.
• A year after “Sulli Deals”, an ‘auction’ of vocal Muslim women on social media, triggered an uproar, another vile app, “Bulli Bai” has misused photographs and targeted women from the community.
• The Bulli Bai controversy surfaced as several Muslim women found themselves on ‘auction’ on an app. The app hosted by the GitHub platform had used their photographs, many of them doctored.
• The targets included women vocal on burning political and social issues, spanning age groups. Prominent journalists, activists and lawyers were among those listed for ‘auction’ in the disgusting app.

Types of Cybercrime Committed Against Women:

• Cyberstalking: it is one of the most talked about net crimes in the modern world, it involves following movements of the person across the internet.
  • Cyber stalkers target and harass their victims via websites, chat rooms, discussion forums, open publishing websites and email
• Harassment through emails: it is very similar to harassment through letters, it includes blackmailing, threatening, bullying and even cheating via email
  • The availability of free email and website space as well as the anonymity provided by chat rooms and forums has contributed to the increase of cyber stalking as form of harassment
• Communalization: Recently growing discontent and hate speeches have led to increase in communal targeting specially against women.
• Cyber bullying: Cyber bullying is willful and repeated harm inflicted through use of computers by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.
  • India is third behind China and Singapore in cyber bullying globally, also the number of cases of suicide linked to cyber bullying have increased over the past decade
• Morphing: it involves editing the original picture by an unauthorized user, it has been observed that pictures of women are downloaded from websites by fake users and again re posted on different websites by creating fake profiles after editing
• Email spoofing: spoofed email is one which misinterprets its origin showing its origin to be different from its actual source
• Cyber defamation: cyber tort including libel and defamation is another common crime against women on internet
• Trolling and gender bullying: women are targeted on internet, the troll posts are essentially related to provocative posting intended to produce a large volume of frivolous responses

Initiatives and Laws to Prevent Cyber-Crimes Against Women:

• Article 19: Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression
  • Article 19(1)(a) of constitution provides fundamental right to speech and expression, but the right is not absolute and is subject to reasonable restrictions mentioned under the Article 19(2)
• Information Technology Act, 2000: The IT Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) is the primary law for dealing with cybercrime and digital commerce in India.
• Electronic obscene content
  • Section 67 of IT Act prevents publishing and transmitting obscene contents on the internet which disturbs public order and morality.
  • It is based on section 292 of IPC but the amount of punishment is higher in IT Act
• Sending of offensive messages
  • Section 66 A provides for the offence of sending offensive messages through communication devices or computer resources.
  • Section 66A makes it an offence when it is send by means of a computer resource
• Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code: Outraging the Modesty This section with its various sub-sections addresses the issues of making sexual remarks , voyeurism and stalking etc
• National Cyber Security Policy, 2013: The policy provides the vision and strategic direction to protect the national cyberspace.
• CERT-In (Cyber Emergency Response Team): CERT-In has been operational since 2004. It is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur.
• Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C): The Union Government has decided to set up 14C. It will be apex coordination center to deal with cybercrimes.
• Cyber Swachhta Kendra: Launched in early 2017, the Cyber Swachhta Kendra provides a platform for users to analyze and clean their systems of various viruses, bots/ malware, Trojans, etc.
• Cyber Surakshit Bharat: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, launched the Cyber Surakshit Bharat initiative to spread awareness about cybercrime and building capacity for safety measures for Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and frontline IT staff across all government departments.
• The Cyber Warrior Police Force: In 2018, the government announced its plans to introduce CWPF. It is proposed to be raised on lines of the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF).
• Cyber-Crime Prevention against Women & Children’ Scheme: Implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the scheme aims to prevent and reduce cyber-crimes against women and children.

Way Forward:

• Policy and Governance: It is important to bring a robust policy and effectively implement the same. Further, duties and responsibilities should be defined clearly for smooth functioning and better coordination among departments and stakeholders.
• Awareness: A periodic awareness campaign by the government and big private organizations should be conducted to aware people about cyber security threats.
• Strengthening Public-Private Partnership: It is important to strengthen the public- private partnership on cyber security.
• Online Women Specific Crime Reporting Unit -Interlink with NCW should be made in such a manner that if a woman wants to make a complaint about cybercrime to NCW, it should be sent to MHA Crime Reporting Unit with acknowledgement to NCW and a copy to the complainant. It will encourage quick disposal of the complaints that too with the assistance of the IT professionals
• Monitoring: Monitoring unit should provide monthly reports on the complaints received through National Commission of Women.
• Capacity Building: It should include capacity building of protection officers appointed under Domestic Violence Act, 2005.

Sources: The Hindu   The Print   Hindustan Times   Economic Times

Mains Question:

Q. Recently various applications surfaced on websites like Github, in this reference, discuss different types of cyber-crimes committed against women and state the various initiatives taken by the government to curb such crimes. Also mention the way forward.