Lok Sabha Question No. 4468 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2017-03-29
Subject: Pornography on Social Media
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: VINOD KUMAR BOIANAPALLI, SURESH KODIKUNNIL, A.P. JITHENDER REDDY

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4468

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 29.03.2017

## PORNOGRAPHY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

## 4468.   SHRI B. VINOD KUMAR: SHRI KODIKUNNIL SURESH: SHRI A.P. JITHENDER REDDY:

Will the Minister of Electronics & Information Technology be pleased to state:-

- (a) whether  the  Government  plans  to  set  up  a  specialized  central  institutional  mechanism  to  block  and  curb sharing  of  sexually  offensive  videos  on  social  networking  platforms  to  check  cybercrimes  and  if  so,  the details thereof;
- (b) whether the Government is aware of the rampant misuse of social media by paedophiles and sex offenders to intimidate and harass women and children and if so,  the details of action proposed in this regard;
- (c) whether cyber pornography, especially involving children has grown by alarming proportions in India over the years and if so, the steps taken to prevent and block streaming of online pornography and especially child pornography;
- (d) whether the Government has  sought the intervention of international policing agencies for cooperation and sharing of intelligence and if so, the details thereof; and
- (e) whether the Government is attempting to persuade websites operating from abroad to set up servers in India to assist remove after illegal and unwarranted contents?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI P.P. CHAUDHARY)

(a):  Ministry of Home Affairs is executing a project on Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC), which will also act as specialized central institutional mechanism for online cyber crime reporting platform particularly cybercrime against women and children.

- (b),  (c),  (d)  and  (e):    No  such  study  has  been  done  by  Government  capturing  misuse  of  social  media  by paedophiles and sex offenders to intimidate and harass women and children. However, as per the data maintained by National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), a total of 749 and 792 cases were registered under publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form (section 67 & 67A IT of Act) and a total of 5 and 8 cases were registered under publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form (section 67B IT of Act) during 2014-2015. Further, a total of 40 cases in 2014 and 94 cases in 2015 were registered under Sections 14 & 15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

Cyber world is anonymous and universally available. Most of the child pornographic websites are hosted from outside  India.  INTERPOL  maintains  and  updates  list  of  'worst  of  list'  on  extreme  child  sexual  abuse. Government periodically blocks this list shared by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the national crime bureau of INTERPOL. More than 3000 such websites/URLs have been blocked so far.

Information  Technology  (IT)  Act,  2000  has  provisions  for  removal  of  objectionable  online  content.  The Information Technology  (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011 notified under section 79 of the IT Act require that the Intermediaries shall observe due diligence while discharging their duties and shall inform the users of computer resources not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is harmful, objectionable, affect minors and unlawful in any way.

Government is in regular touch with intermediaries including various social media websites to effectively address the blocking/removal of objectionable content.  Further, Social Networking sites hosted anywhere in the world are monitored by the law enforcement agencies in order to check / remove objectionable contents from the web sites in accordance with the provisions of IT Act, 2000.

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