Today’s era is a digital era and our country with the world’s second largest is not untouched from the risks and afflictions of cybercrime. Over the past years an incessant spur has been recorded worldwide and in India a total of over 3.17 lakh cybercrimes and 5,771 FIRs have been registered in the past 20 months. And in august 2019 government provided a centralized mechanism, a National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal to register complaints online. So, what is cybercrime and under which law it is punishable? In order to commit cybercrime an offender will require a computer and a network. A computer can be used for a crime or can be a target for a crime. Every device having an IP address can be used to commit cybercrime. Cybercrime in India is punished under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Information Technology Act, 2000 and. IT Act widely known as cyber law in India. Cyber law is the law that governs Cyberspace and Internet and the concerned legal issues. It covers a substantially broad area. The IT Act was enforced on 17 October 2000 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. It was for the first time amended in 2008 with the introduction of section 66 to 74. From section 65 to section 74 offences related to cyberspace have been laid down. It consists of offences like Hacking with computer systems, Publishing information which is obscene in electronic form, Breach of confidentiality and privacy, publishing electronic signature certificate false in certain particulars, Publishing private images of others, Publishing child porn or predating children online. Section 408, 411, 379, 354 D, 419, 420, 465, 468 and 469 of IPC also deals with cyber offences. Our world has become borderless and because of that cybercrime is not just limited to one country, any person residing in America can commit an offence in India. With advancement in technology, personal identities and privacy has been put to even greater risk. In India over 59% of Indian adults are victims of cybercrime. Many social media tycoons like WhatsApp, Facebook, and famous search engines like Google have been often accused of violating our privacy and keeping a close tab on our activities through cookies. Recently dominos data was breached and over 18 crore order details were leaked including name, address and cards details. Putting millions of Indians' information at risk. Earlier our defense website was hacked by some Chinese hacker. Such incidents are of grave concern. Cyber security is as important as breathing fresh air looking at the current scenario of digitalization. Social media giants like WhatsApp, Facebook and twitter have not yet accepted The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Which were introduced to increase accountability and prevent abuse of anonymity. These guidelines introduced a three-tier redressal mechanism for effective resolution of grievances. The main objective behind such an initiative was to make cyberspace a safer place. But instead, WhatsApp today filed a counter suit in Delhi High Court stating that these policies are violative of privacy of Indian users. Coming to this we need a stringent mechanism to stop cybercrime and introduce even harsher laws and fully fledged mechanisms to deal with such cases. For instance, the situation in Europe is much better as they have very brilliantly managed to apply The General Data Protection Regulation (EU). And violation of GDPR by any company will cost the company its business in the EU as well financial penalties will be imposed.
-By Bhuwaneshi Gupta
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