Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Cyber Crimes And Role of Media In India

Cyber crimes in India are increasing rapidly. With the proliferation of social media websites in India, cyber crimes have not spared even such social media websites. A lot of cyber crimes, cyber contraventions, intellectual property rights (IPRs) violations, etc are committed due to lack of awareness about cyber law of India.

Further, there are very low cyber crimes convictions in India. This is because the cyber crime investigations in India are not proper due to lack of cyber law and cyber forensics knowledge. There is an urgent need to ensure cyber skills development in India so that cyber crimes can be prosecuted successfully.

Even judiciary needs to reform its practices and working style. Presently civil and criminal cases take decades to resolve and this frustrate the cause of justice. Technological innovations like e-courts, online dispute resolution (ODR), digital evidencing, e-discovery, cyber forensics, etc are still missing from Indian courts. These technological innovations can greatly reduce the time taken by Indian courts to decide cases.

Similarly the role of media in expediting the trials in courts is also well known. Media highlights the societal issues and this force the courts to speed up the matter. While media trial must be avoided yet public awareness must be spread by media so that cases can be debated among Indian masses. Cyber crime cases generally do not attract media attention.

Social media websites are popular places for building new relationships and contacts. However, social media websites are also becoming a place for cyber criminals to indulge in various cyber crimes.

We have no dedicated social media laws in India although guidelines for social media contents monitoring in India may be prescribed. Although we have a cyber law in India in the form of information technology act 2000 (IT Act 2000) yet we have no dedicated social networking laws in India. The cyber law for social media in India needs to be strengthened further keeping in mind a balance between civil liberties and law enforcement requirements.