(Riya Singh, Intern Journalist): The Delhi High Court while hearing a case related to child pornography has directed the police agencies to forward sexually explicit material relating to the petitioner to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to identify the persons who are re-uploading the offensive content in India. A single-Judge bench led by Justice Vibhu Bakhru was hearing a petition by a 24-year-old woman whose photographs which had been taken when she was a minor had been uploaded on the internet by her boyfriend.
After becoming aware that the accused had placed her photographs on the net, the petitioner filed a complaint against the accused before the Special Cell, Cyber Crime Department, Delhi Police and also sent notices to the Social media platforms for removal of the URL / webpages, however, no caution was taken by the respondents after which the petitioner had to approach the High Court.
Advocate Anurag Ahluwalia learned counsel appearing for Government of India submitted that NCRB acts as a nodal agency for technical and operational functions of the on-line Cyber Reporting Portal: www.cybercrime.gov.in. The incidents reported on the portal are shared with law enforcement agencies. NCRB has also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NCMEC to receive Cyber Tipline reports relating to the suspected CP content.
Facebook, through an affidavit, submitted that it has implemented a number of measures to combat the spread of child porn (CP) including working with the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which is a non- profit organization involved in helping to find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization.
Google LLC informed the Court that it has a dedicated web form that can be used by government agencies to report content that may be unlawful, including CSAM related material, which is then expedited for review by the relevant support teams. This web form can be accessed at http://supportgoogle.com/legal/contact/Ir_gov_india.
The bench has also directed the Social media platforms to use such measures as available with them to remove the contents which are similar to the contents of the URLs in the present case.
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