National Crime Records Bureau Designated To Tackle Child Porn, Online Rape Videos : News World India

In a bid to tackle the easy online availability of child porn and gang rape videos, the Centre has designated the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to act on such content either taking suo moto cognisance or acting in response to complaints, media reported on Wednesday.

Under section 79 of the IT Act, 2000, the MHA in a recent order designated “NCRB, to be the agency of the Ministry of Home Affairs to perform the functions under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of Information Technology Act, 2000 and to notify the instances.”

Union Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad conducted meetings with NSA Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba and IB chief Rajiv Jain on Tuesday to urge social media platforms to identify and withdraw such videos.

The discussions took place ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on a plea by the Prajwala NGO highlighting the availability of child porn and rape videos online and seeking measures to combat them.

In its previous hearing, the Supreme Court had warned social media websites of imposing a Rs 5 lakh per day fine each until they developed a foolproof mechanism to prevent uploading of objectionable material.

Although there are certain restrictions on accessing child pornography from desktop computers, search engines and social media have not been able to curb access to such material from laptops and smartphones, officials said.

“A list of 500 key words used in searching such child porn and rape videos has also been compiled and will be shared with the ISPs, including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, WhatsApp and Microsoft,” said an official.