The Minister of Women and Child Development, Dr Virendra Kumar said that the Government of
India, through Ministry, is working to improve and create more cybersecurity
measures for women.
On 26 July, the Ministry
released a statement that
discussed the various precautions that are being taken to ensure women’s
cybersecurity. In July 2014, after the Consultation on Cyber Crimes, the
National Commission for Women submitted a report on the “Ways
and Means to Safeguard Women from Cyber Crimes in India”. The report included recommendations to create
more women-centric laws and to discourage hacking and other illegal cyber
activities by setting in place stricter laws.
The report also suggested that
dedicated helpline numbers be made functional to receive complaints. The
Ministry should organise more awareness programmes in schools and universities
to educate the youth about the consequences of misusing digital data and the
existing and newly evolving types of cybercrimes that target women. Children
must know the reasons behind the escalation in cybercrimes and the socio-legal
ethics regarding photography in the public places (especially photography of
women).
Apart from education, the report
recommended developing more Cyber Cells for women, setting up more advanced
cyber-forensic labs and providing better legal and technical training to law
enforcement agencies.
The release claimed that the Information
Technology Act, 2000 along with Indian Penal Code
provides adequate legal measures to deal with the current cybercrimes in the
country. The Information Technology Act, 2000 is an Act of the Indian
Parliament that is the primary law regarding dealing with cybercrime and
electronic commerce in the country. The policies provide punishment in the form
of imprisonment ranging from two years to life imprisonment and a fine or
penalty depending on the type of cybercrime.
According to the release, the Government has
already taken a number of legal, technical and administrative measures to
prevent cybercrimes; Cyber Police Stations and Cyber Crime Cells have been set
up in every state in the country. The Ministry of Electronics & Information
Technology (MeitY) has set up Cyber Forensics Training Labs in north-eastern
states and in metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Bangalore.
These Labs train state police officials and judiciary in cybercrime detection
and collection, preservation and seizing and analysing electronic evidence.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of
Electronics and Information Technology and State Government are working
together to digitise the security setup and to equip police personnel with the
knowledge and skills to prevent and control cybercrime through various national
and state police and judicial academies.
On 6 June 2016, the Ministry of Electronics &
Information Technology issued
an advisory on how matrimonial websites should function
under the Information Technology Act, 2000. The Ministry outlined regulatory
rules and directed the websites to adopt security measures to ensure that
people using these websites are not deceived through fake profiles and that
there is no misuse of the information provided on the sites.
The Government circulated Computer
Security Policy and Guidelines to all the Ministries and Departments in the
country on the steps to take to prevent, detect and mitigate cyber-attacks.
The Ministry of Home Affairs developed an
online portal to facilitate the public's
cybercrime complaints.
