Government designates NCRB to curb online child pornography and sexual violence

Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has designated National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) as nodal authority to curb online child pornography, sexual violence and rape videos. It was decided by high-level meeting to discuss recommendations on ways to curb “sexual violence” videos involving women and children.

Key Facts

NCRB can act on such online child pornography, sexual violence and rape videos content either on the basis of complaints or by taking suo motu cognizance. It also has been mandated to launch online portal for receiving complaints and acting on them. The powers were delegated to NCRD under section 79 of Information Technology Act, 2000 to perform the functions under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of IT Act, 2000 and to notify the instance as per the order issued.

Background

The meeting was convened ahead of upcoming hearing before Supreme Court on plea by NGO Prajwala highlighting availability of child porn and rape videos online while seeking measures to check this. The meeting was chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, NSA Ajit Doval, Director of Intelligence Bureau. In this meeting, ways to filter objectionable materials, including rape videos on laptops and smartphones were discussed. It was also decided to share list of 500 key words used in searching such child porn and rape videos with Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, WhatsApp and Microsoft.

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)

NCRB is nodal agency under Home Ministry for authentic source of data on crime on various parameters including accidents, suicides from across all the states of the country and prisons for policy matters and research. It was established on 11 March 1986 as the central police organisation. It is headquartered in New Delhi. It is implementing and monitoring agency of Crime & Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS), a Mission Mode Project under National e-Governance Plan of Government. It also imparts training in Information Technology (IT) and Finger Print Science for Indian Police Officers as well Foreign Police officers. It publishes 4 annual publications on Crime, Prison Statistics, Accidental Deaths & Suicides and Finger Prints. These publications serve as principal reference points on crime statistics.

Month: Current Affairs - August, 2018