Lok Sabha Question No. 1455 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-07-28
Subject: Digital Safety of Citizen
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Arun Sao, Sunil Kumar Soni, Vijay Baghel

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1455

TO BE ANSWERED ON 28.07.2021

## DIGITAL SAFETY OF CITIZEN

## 1455:  SHRI ARUN SAO: SHRI SUNIL KUMAR SONI: SHRI VIJAY BAGHEL

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

- (a) whether efforts are being made by the Government ensure digital safety of the citizens especially women;
- (b) if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether orders have been issued by the Government to social media platforms to take down the contents that jeopardize citizen's digital safety;
- (d) if so, the details thereof;
- (e) whether Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Home Affairs, Women and Child Development have consulted together on the issues of social media platforms; and
- (f) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR)

(a) and (b):   Government is committed for digital safety of people including women and has taken several steps that inter alia , include:

- (i) The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 has   provisions to deal with prevalent cyber crimes  including  the  ones  related  to  women.    Sections  66E,  67,  and  67A  of  the  Act provide for the punishment and fine for violation of bodily privacy and publishing or transmitting of obscene/sexually-explicit material in electronic form. Section 67B of the Act specifically provides stringent punishment for publishing, browsing or transmitting child pornography in electronic form. Further, sections 354C and 354D of Indian Penal Code provide punishment for cyber bullying and cyber stalking.
- (ii) The  recently  notified  Information  Technology  (Intermediary  Guidelines  and  Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021notified under the IT Act particularly deal with citizen safety especially for women and children. The IT Rules require that the intermediaries shall observe due diligence while discharging their duties and shall inform their users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, update or share any information that is harmful, defamatory, obscene and invasive of another's privacy or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatsoever.  The intermediary shall also adopt grievance mechanism as

prescribed  in  the  Rules.  Intermediaries  are  also  expected  to  remove  any  information violative of any law in India as and when brought to their knowledge either through a court order or through a notice by an appropriate government or its authorised agency.

Further,  rule  3(2)  of  these  Rules  provides  that  on  a  complaint  by  an  individual intermediary shall, within 24 hours, remove any content which prima facie exposes the private area of such individual, shows such individual in full or partial nudity or shows or  depicts  such  individual  in  any  sexual  act  or  conduct,  or  is  in  the  nature  of impersonation  in  an  electronic  form,  including  artificially  morphed  images  of  such individual.

- (iii) Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) operates a National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, www.cybercrime.gov.in to enable citizens to report complaints pertaining to all types of cyber crimes with special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.
- (iv) MeitY  through  a  program,  namely,  Information  Security  Education  &  Awareness (ISEA),  has  been  creating  awareness  among  users  highlighting  the  importance  of following the ethics while using Internet and advising them not to share rumours/fake news. A dedicated website for information security awareness (https://www.infosecawareness.in) provides relevant awareness material. Besides  conducting  training  and  awareness  workshop  including  those  exclusively  for women,  ISEA  has  published    an  exclusive  handbook  namely 'Information  Security Awareness handbook for Women', 'Cyber Security tips for Women' and 'Online Safety tips for Women @ Home during COVID 19'. The awareness content designed/developed exclusively  for  women  have  been  made  available  for  download  on  the website https://www.infosecawareness.in/women

(c) and (d): With the new IT Rules, it is expected that the adoption of  a robust grievance redressal mechanism  and  publishing  of  monthly  compliance  reports  from  significant  social  media intermediaries would improve citizen's digital safety.

(e)  and  (f):      This  Ministry  regularly  interacts  with  Ministry  of  Home  Affairs  and  Ministry  of Women and Child Development on issues related to spreading of fake news and misinformation/disinformation on the social media platforms.

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