An Online Fight Where Children Need to Be Saved

Why in News?

• Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently conducted searches across States and Union Territories as part of a pan-India operation, “Megh Chakra”.
• The article emphasizes that India needs to adopt an appropriate strategy to fight the production and the spread of online child sex abuse material (CSAM).

 

About Operation Megh Chakra

• Under this operation, CBI raided 59 locations across 21 states targeting at cloud storage used by peddlers to circulate audio-visual material on illicit sexual activities with minors.
• Raids came after the agency registered two cases under relevant provisions of the IT Act, based on inputs from the Crime Against Children (CAC) unit of the Interpol, based in Singapore, which had received it from New Zealand police.

 

Earlier similar operations

• In November 2021, a similar exercise code-named “Operation Carbon” was launched by the CBI,

 

Child pornography in India

• Permit adult pornography : In India, though viewing adult pornography in private is not an offence, however, seeking, browsing, downloading or exchanging child pornography is an offence punishable under the IT Act.
• Exemption: However, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are exempted from liability for any third-party data if they do not initiate the transmission.
  • Third-party data is information collected by companies that don't have a direct relationship with consumers. It typically consists of purchasing data from another company, partnering with a business to gain a mutual benefit, and/or researching available information.
• CSAM prevalence: Since the public reporting of circulation of online CSAM is very low in India and there is no system of automatic electronic monitoring, thus making India’s enforcement agencies largely dependent on foreign agencies for the requisite information.
  • According to Interpol data, India reported over 24 lakh instances of online child sexual abuse during three year period between 2017-20 with 80 per cent of the victims being girls below the age of 14 years.

 

India’s efforts so far

• Shreya Singhal case (2015) Supreme Court of India, read down Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act in this case.
  • As per this Section, any social media intermediary will not be in the radar of legal action for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by him.
  • The SC ruling thus meant that the intermediaries ought to act only upon receiving actual knowledge that a court order has been passed, asking [them] to expeditiously remove or disable access to certain material.
• Kamlesh Vaswani case (2013): The petitioner here sought a complete ban on pornography.
  • After the Court’s intervention, the advisory committee was thus constituted which issued orders in March 2015 to ISPs to disable nine (domain) URLs which hosted contents in violation of the morality and decency clause of Article 19(2) of the Constitution. However, the petition is still pending in the Supreme Court.
• Prajwala case v/s union of India: The Supreme Court (SC) ordered the government to frame the necessary guidelines/Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and implement them to “eliminate child pornography, rape and gang rape imagery, videos, and sites in content hosting platforms and other applications”.
• National CSAM portal: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) launched a National Cybercrime Reporting Portal in 2018 for filing online complaints pertaining to child pornography and rape-gang rape and was later extended to all types of cybercrime.
• Parliamentary Committee: The Rajya Sabha ad hoc Committee 2020 report, made wide-ranging recommendations on ‘the alarming issue of pornography on social media and its effect on children and society as whole’.
  • On the legislative front, the committee not only recommended the widening of the definition of ‘child pornography’ but also proactive monitoring, mandatory reporting and taking down or blocking CSAM by ISPs.
  • On the technical front, the committee recommended permitting the breaking of end-to-end encryption, building partnership with industry to develop tools using artificial intelligence for dark-web investigations, tracing identity of users engaged in crypto currency transactions to purchase child pornography online and liaisoning with financial service companies to prevent online payments for purchasing child pornography.
• Joint agreement: The National Crime Records Bureau (MHA) signed a memorandum of understanding with non-profit foundation named National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2019.
  • By this, NCRB receives 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.
• Private initiatives: Aarambh India’, a Mumbai-based NGO, partnered with the International Watch Foundation (IWF), and launched India’s first online reporting portal in 2016 to report images and videos of child abuse.
  • Till 2018, out of 1,182 reports received at the portal, only 122 were found to contain CSAM.
• Mandatory reporting: According to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children 2018 report, 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.

 

Global efforts against CSAM

• U.S. model: A programme by National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a non-profit organisation in the United States, called CyberTipline calls for public and electronic service providers (ESPs) to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation.
  • ISPs are mandated to report the identity and the location of individuals suspected of violating the law and NCMEC may notify ISPs to block transmission of online CSAM.
  • In 2021, the CyberTipline received more than 29.3 million reports (99% from ESPs) of U.S. hosted and suspected CSAM.
• U.K. model: A non-profit organization called Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) seeks to ensure a safe online environment for users with a particular focus on CSAM.
  • It includes engaging the analysts to actively search for criminal content, disrupting the availability of CSAM and deleting such content hosted in the U.K.
  • In 2021, the IWF assessed more than 3 lakh reports (about 70% reports had CSAM) and seven in 10 reports contained “self-generated” CSAM.
• UK Legislation: Though U.K. does not explicitly mandate the reporting of suspected CSAM, ISPs may be held responsible for third party content if they hosts or caches such content on their servers.
• WeProtect Global Alliance : It is a global movement of more than 200 governments, private sector companies and civil society organisations working together to transform the global response to child sexual exploitation and abuse online.
• Coordinated enforcement: 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 hosted by Interpol, and facilitates the exchange of CSAM reports between hotlines and law enforcement agencies.
  • About ICCAM: ICCAM (I- “See” (c)-Child-Abuse-Material) is a tool to facilitate image/video hashing/fingerprinting and reduce the number of duplicate investigations.
  • Data: In 2021, the number of exchanged content URLs stood at more than 9 lakh out of which more than 4 lakh contained illegal content. About 72% of all illegal content URLs were removed from the Internet within three days of a notice and takedown order.

 

Conclusion

• It’s time that India joins INHOPE and establishes its hotline to utilise Interpol’s secure IT infrastructure or collaborate with ISPs and financial companies by establishing an independent facility such as the IWF or NCMEC.

 

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Source: An Online Fight Where Children Need to Be Saved