Lok Sabha Question No. 1696 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-05-04
Subject: Blocking Pornographic Sites
Ministry: COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: K. MARAGATHAM

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS &INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.  1696

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 04.05.2016

## BLOCKING PORNOGRAPHIC SITES

## 1696      SHRIMATI  K. MARAGATHAM:

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

- (a) whether  the  Government  has  prepared  a  list  of  pornographic  websites  including  child pornographic sites;
- (b) if so, the details thereof and the steps taken to block them; and
- (c) the  measures  taken  by  the  Government  to  increase  capacity  and  technical  expertise  of government agencies to monitor and block such sites?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a)  and  (b):  The  filtering  of  web  sites  with  pornographic  content  poses  significant  technical challenge.  These websites keep on changing the names, domain addresses and hosting platforms from  time  to  time  making  it  difficult  to  filter  or  block  such  websites  using  technical  tools available in the market.  Further 'https' websites with encrypted content are used to transmit the pornographic content which makes identification of such sites difficult as the data is encrypted. Further most  of the pornographic  sites are hosted outside the  country,  where  viewing pornography is legal.  However, child pornography is banned in most of the countries.

The Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 together with the Indian Penal Code 1860, provides legal framework for countering pornographic sites including child pornography. As per section 67B  of  the  Information  and  Technology  Act  2000,  and  Sections  13  and  14  of  Protection  of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012, online child sexual abuse is illegal in India in  terms  of  publication, transmission, creation, collection, browsing, downloading, advertising, grooming, recording etc.  and is considered cognizable and non-bailable offence.

International  Organization,  INTERPOL  maintains  a  list  of  'Worst-of-list'  websites  containing most severe child  sexual  abuse  material,  which  is  updated  by  INTERPOL  on  a  regular  basis. Action  has  been  initiated  by  the  Government  to  get  the  list  of  child  pornography  sites  from INTERPOL  through  Central  Bureau  of  Investigation  (CBI)  which  is  the  nodal  agency  for interacting  with  INTERPOL.    The  list  of  such  sites  obtained  regularly  would  be  taken  up  for blocking.

(c):    To  address  the  issues  effectively,  Government  is  in  regular  touch  with  Internet  Service Providers to upgrade their infrastructure and technology to effectively address the shortcomings with regard to identifying and blocking encrypted websites / URLs.  Government is in regular touch  with  Social  Networking  sites,  having  their  offices  in  India,  to  disable  objectionable contents  at  the  source  from  their  websites.    Government  has  also  initiated  Research  and Development programmes to deal with  technical  issues  relating  to  encrypted  communications from the point of monitoring and blocking.

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