Despite Centre's Submission To SC,Web Portal For Online Registration Of Cyber Complaints Not Yet Open For Public [Read Order]

Though the Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that web portal www.cyberpolice.gov.in for anonymous reporting of child pornography/rape/gang rape content and online registration of cyber complaints will be ready by January 10 (Wednesday), the portal is not fully operational (as on January 11, 2018) as an error message ‘Forbidden: You don't have permission to access / on this server’ pops up when one tries to access the site.

In the in-camera proceedings held in the matter of Re: Prajwala Letter Dated 18.2.2015 Videos of Sexual Violence and Recommendations, the bench was told by the Assistant Solicitor General of India that the portal will be ready on or before January 10, 2018.

During the last hearing, the bench comprising Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice UU Lalit had directed the Union of India to have the portal for making complaints by citizens with regard to issues pertaining to child sexual abuse, child pornography and rape/ gang rape videos, ready on or before January 10, 2018.

It was stated in the report that certain features will be made operational by January 10 and offered to public such as anonymous reporting of child pornography/rape/gang rape content and online registration of cyber complaints, which will be forwarded to the State/UT police authorities concerned for appropriate action.

“Other features are likely to be made operational by 10th February, 2018 with regard to providing status update of complaints to registered complainants, portal access to other stakeholders willing to register for providing inputs on child pornography/rape/gang rape content and maintaining hash tag of obscene content,” the ASG had told the court.

During the hearing held on Monday, the Assistant Solicitor General told the court that that online cyber-crime reporting portal has been developed with access name as www.cyberpolice.gov.in and that this portal is undergoing security audit and has been deployed in staging environment for testing and trial and that it is expected that it will be operational very soon.

The ASG also submitted, in his status report, that the Ministry of Home Affairs has identified the keywords for child pornography/rape and gang rape content search and a list of keywords in English language has been compiled and circulated to content providers for further action.

The court has listed the matter on February 15 for further hearing.

The Supreme Court has also asked Facebook Inc. to inform whether it is developing a new “proactive detection” technology for real time screening through artificial intelligence. The bench asked the counsel appearing for Facebook counsel to file an affidavit indicating whether any such technology has been developed and if it has not been developed, the progress made for developing such technology, if any.