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Online platform to deal with child abuse content

The committee is likely to issue a set of standard operating procedures soon for internet providers while dealing with abuse content online

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The Women and Child Development Ministry is working on an online platform to serve as a single-window clearance for complaints against child sexual abuse content online. The ministry is part of an inter-ministerial committee, along with the Ministry of Information Technology and the Home Ministry, looking into child sex abuse content online.

The committee is likely to issue a set of standard operating procedures soon for internet providers while dealing with abuse content online. As part of the committee, the IT ministry had last month issued an order under which internet service providers will need to adopt and implement the Internet Watch Foundation resources by July 31. The resources, updated regularly, issues a list of sites with such content. The order is an interim arrangement till the committee puts in place a centralised mechanism.

"The platform will be initiated by the WCD ministry, and we hope to have it running in five to six months. It will have a mechanism to deal with complaints about such content in real time," said a WCD ministry official. The ministry had earlier revealed that its child care helpline, Childline had received over 4,000 cases of child sexual abuse in a span of eight months from over 315 districts. A substantial chunk of these cases were about abuse online.

In reply to queries by the standing committee on home affairs, chaired by former finance minister P Chidambaram, the Centre had, earlier this year said that child pornography cases have seen a two-fold increase. From over 40 cases in 2014, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) registered 94 cases in 2015 under Section 14 and 15 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, it said. NCRB does not have a separate database for cyber crimes against children.

In March this year, the Supreme Court directed a panel to be formed following a petition by Sunitha Krishnan, who wanted to stop videos of gang rape being  circulated online. The apex court said that the panel, with representatives from the home ministry and IT ministry and from companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc., to look into the technological feasibility to stop access to websites that carry abuse content such as rape videos and child pornography.

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