Lok Sabha Question No. 5611 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-04-06
Subject: Online Blocking
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: P. Velusamy

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOKSABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.5611

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 06.04.2022

## ONLINE BLOCKING

## 5611. SHRI VELUSAMY P.

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

- (a) whether  the  Department  of  Telecommunications  (DOT)  has  issued  any  orders  to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) directing them to block access to URLs, Facebook pages and YouTube Videos;
- (b) if so, the details thereof;
- (c) whether  the  Government  has  received  any  complaint  regarding  illegal  domains posting as Government websites;
- (d) if so, the details of the action taken by the Government;
- (e) whether  the  ISPs  have  necessary  technology  to  block  specific  items  or  contents instead of blocking the entire website and if so, the details thereof; and
- (f) whether  the  Government  is  coordinating  with  various  other  Ministries  and  ISPs  to streamline the procedures for online blocking and if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

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

(a) and (b): In  line  with  the  objective  of  the  Government  to  ensure  an  Open,  Safe  & Trusted  and  Accountable  Internet  for  all  its  users,  Ministry  of  Electronics  and  Information Technology (MeitY) issues directions for blocking for access of information by public under provision of section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 and the Rules therein, namely, the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information for Public) Rules, 2009. MeitY issue directions to Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to direct the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access of website/domains. DoT, being licensors to ISPs, directs them to block website/domain when it receives  directions  for  blocking  from  MeitY  or  a  competent  court  order.  For  social  media platforms, directions for blocking of access to URLs are issued to respective intermediaries. Accordingly, MeitY issues directions directly to Facebook and YouTube to block access to Facebook pages and YouTube Videos respectively.

Based  on  the  requests  received  from  various  nodal  officers,  MeitY  has  blocked  3635, 9849 and 6096 URLs during the year 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively.

(c) and (d): Yes,  Sir.  It  is  observed  that  some  websites  pretending  to  be  Government websites are hosted for conducting fraudulent activities like recruitment scams. Upon noticing such  incidents,  the  Indian  Computer  Emergency  Response  Team  (CERT-In)  coordinates incident response  measures  with  affected  entities, service providers, respective sector regulators as well as law enforcement agencies.

- (e): No Sir. ISPs cannot block specific items or contents or specific webpage of a website which  uses  https  protocol.  In  the  https  protocol,  the  data  packets  are  transmitted  using encrypted form.
- (f): The procedure for blocking of URLs under section 69A of the IT Act is published as the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public)  Rules, 2009. Further, the procedure for removal of unlawful online content is defined in section 79 of the IT Act and the Rules therein namely, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

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