Govt aims to keep India's internet free from unlawful, obscene content: I&B Ministry to Lok Sabha

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that the government is committed to ensuring that the Internet in India is free from any form of unlawful content or information, particularly vulgar and obscene content.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that the government is committed to ensuring that the Internet in India is free from any form of unlawful content or information, particularly vulgar and obscene content. Minister of State (MoS) for Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs L Murugan informed the Lower House of Parliament in a written reply to a question asked by Prabhakar Reddy Vemireddy in the Lok Sabha today.

He also informed the House that the government is implementing a project on 'Information Security Education and Awareness (ISEA)' for generating human resources in Information Security and creating general awareness on various aspects of cyber hygiene and cyber security among the masses He said the policies of the Government are aimed at ensuring an Open, Safe, Trusted and Accountable Internet for its users, including women and children.

"The government is committed to ensuring that the Internet in India is free from any form of unlawful content or information, particularly vulgar and obscene content," said the MoS. He said the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules) together provide a comprehensive framework to deal with unlawful and harmful content in the digital space and impose clear obligations on intermediaries to ensure accountability. The IT Rules, 2021 casts due-diligence obligations on intermediaries, including social media intermediaries to make reasonable efforts to ensure that users of their computer resources do not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that is obscene, pornographic, pedophilic, harmful to child, invasive of privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender or violates any law for the time being in force, Murugan said.

"In case of failure of the intermediaries to observe the legal obligations as provided in the IT Rules, 2021, they lose their exemption from third party information provided under section 79 of the IT Act. They are liable for consequential action or prosecution as provided under any extant law." On February 10 this year, the government strengthened the regulatory framework by amending the IT Rules to address harms arising from synthetically generated information (SGI), including deepfakes and AI-generated content.

As per the amendments, intermediaries and large social media platforms are required to deploy reasonable technical measures to prevent the creation and dissemination of unlawful AI-generated content, including content that is obscene, misleading, impersonating individuals, or harmful to children. Platforms are also obligated to report to appropriate authorities about the related offences under laws that mandate reporting, such as Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, or the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The 'National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal' (NCRP) was launched as a part of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to enable the public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cybercrimes. NCRP includes provisions for reporting certain categories of cyber offences against women and children in an anonymous manner. Under the "Report Women/Child Related Crime" module, complainants may choose the "Report Anonymously" option, which allows submission of complaints without disclosure of personal identity details.

NCRP has introduced a module titled 'Report and Check Suspect' to enable citizens to report suspicious website URLs, WhatsApp numbers, Telegram handles, phone numbers, e-mail IDs, SMS headers and numbers, deep fakes and social media URLs. The government has also released financial assistance to the tune of Rs 132.93 crores under the 'Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)' Scheme, to the States/UTs for their capacity building such as setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and training of LEAs' personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers. Cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 states and Union Territories, and more than 24,600 LEA personnel, judicial officers and prosecutors have been provided training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, and forensics.

I4C wing of the Ministry of Home Affairs has also imparted Cyber Hygiene training to more than 2 lakh NCC, NSS & NYKS students across the country. It has also released 'Handbook for Adolescents/Students' aimed at educating the students on the prevention of cybercrime and 'Cyber Security Handbook for Mahila Suraksha' to promote awareness among women. (ANI)