Cyber Crime Volunteers Program

Description

GS PAPER III: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention.

Context: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has said it does not maintain a centralised list of volunteers enrolled under the cybercrime volunteer programme since police is a “State subject” under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.

Cyber Crime Volunteers Program

The MHA, through its cybercrime grievance portal, cybercrime.gov.in, aims to raise a group of “cybercrime volunteers” to flag “unlawful content” on the Internet.
The volunteer programme is supposed to act as a facilitative tool between ordinary citizens and the government for the prevention of cybercrime.
Any citizen can register himself/herself under one of three categories: ‘Cyber Volunteer Unlawful Content Flagger’, ‘Cyber Awareness Promoter’, and ‘Cyber Expert’.
Post-registration, the individual can directly report “unlawful content” being circulated over the Internet, which presumably includes social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, among others.
The Cyber Crime Volunteer Framework has been rolled out as a part of cyber hygiene promotion to bring together citizens to contribute in the fight against cybercrime in the country and assist State/UT LEAs in their endeavour to curb cybercrimes.
The volunteers are registered, and their services utilised, by the respective State/UT LEAs as per their requirement.
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has been established under Ministry of Home affairs (MHA) to act as a nodal point at National level in the fight against cybercrime.
It aims to provide a platform to deal with cybercrimes in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.
One of the important objectives of I4C is to create ecosystem that brings together academia, industry, public and government in prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of cybercrimes.
I4C has envisaged the Cyber Crime Volunteers Program to bring together citizens with passion to serve the nation on a single platform and contribute in fight against cybercrime in the country.
Good Samaritans are welcome to register as Cyber Crime Volunteers in the role of Unlawful Content Flaggers for facilitating law enforcement agencies in identifying, reporting and removal of illegal / unlawful online content.