July 8, 2018:

National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is broadening ambit of data collection on cyber crimes to include trolling and abuse on social media.

NCRB will maintain data on fake online profiles, online defamation, online frauds, cyber stalking, cyber bullying, online gambling and cases of online abetment of suicides.

These new categories will be part of latest NCRB report, which is likely to be released in the next few months.

Currently, a record of such crimes is not maintained at the national level.

Senior Official stated that, “Online Crimes, especially people with fake online profiles, are becoming a big challenge. Therefore, it has been decided to maintain a centralised data for such crimes.”

Government is working on a project called Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems that will provide comprehensive and integrated data on all the crimes for effective policing through E-Governance.

Cyber law expert Ankur Raheja said the new classification would help in tackling these crimes more effectively.

He added that,“If such detailed categorisation comes, it will show the exact magnitude of these crimes. That will help the government and other agencies create better awar- eness of such crimes”.

According to Sources, statistics on online gambling and lottery will be introduced under “offences under special local laws involving communication devices as medium/target read with IT Act”.

Rest of Cyber crimes will be listed out under category of “Offences under Indian Penal Code (involving Communication Devices as Medium/Target) read with sections of the Information Technology Act.”

Incidents of Cyber stalking/bullying of women/children will be listed as offences covered under Section 354 D IPC read with IT Act. Online abetment of suicide under section 305/306 IPC will cover dangerous online games such as the ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ which led many people, especially youths and children, to commit suicide.

Data on frauds provided by NCRB will also be widened from this year, sources said.

Till 2017, only statistics on the Credit/debit card frauds were given. From this year, Data on ATM frauds, online banking frauds, OTP frauds will all be separately listed.

Source The New Indian Express

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