Modi government established robust system to check cyber crimes, says Shah

NEW DELHI: The Modi government has created a robust system to handle cyber crimes where people can lodge online complaints that lead to registration of FIRs and prompt action, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday.

He said more than 20 lakh cyber crime complaints have been registered on the national cyber crime reporting portal so far on the basis of which 40,000 FIRs have been registered.

In addition to that, more than 13 crore hits registered on this portal since its launch in January 2020, he told reporters after a review meeting of cyber security infrastructure and functioning of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).

He said under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry of Home Affairs is making comprehensive, integrated and all out efforts to create awareness among masses about various aspects of cyber security and cybercrime.

“The Modi government has adopted a strategy to promote ‘coordination- exchange -sharing’ in information and data as soon as it took over,” he said.

These include, Shah said, real time reporting of cyber crimes, forensic laboratory network, capacity building, research and development, ensuring cyber hygiene of cyber space and special focus and efforts were undertaken on topics such as cyber awareness.

Due to the increased vigil, about 500 mobile apps were identified and banned by the law enforcement agencies, he said.

Shah said in view of the increasing cyber financial frauds, the ‘1930’ helpline number has been launched and this platform covers over 250 banks and financial intermediaries, assists in real time action such as restricting fraudulent funds and marking lien-money.

“The quick reporting system and action of the task force has resulted in recovery of over Rs 235 crore embezzled by cyber criminals from over 1.33 lakh people so far,” he said.

The home minister said the national database of sexual offenders has been set up and through this searchable registry, law enforcement agencies can look for offenders involved in sexual offences like rape, molestation, stalking, child abuse etc.

“This includes the names, addresses, photographs and fingerprint details of the offenders. It helps in identification and verification of sexual offenders to prevent further crimes,” he said.

Shah said 99.9 per cent of police stations (total of 16,597 police stations) in the country are registering 100 per cent FIRs directly on Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) and the national database so far contains 28.98 crore police records.

“On CCTNS, more than 12.82 crore service requests have been received from citizens, out of which 12.35 crore requests have been disposed of by the state police, he said.

On National Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), 1,05,80,266 records are being integrated, through the National Cyber Forensic Laboratory (Investigation), more than 5,000 forensic services have been provided to the states so far and training on cyber crime awareness, investigation, forensics, etc. provided to 30,000 police personnel, judicial officers, and prosecutors, he said.

Besides, the home minister said, analytical report on modus operandi of top 50 cyber-attacks has been prepared.

He said through the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform ‘CyTrain’, more than 31,000 police officers have been registered and more than 8,000 certificates have been issued.

The I4C, which was launched by Shah on January 10, 2020, to deal with cyber crime in a coordinated and comprehensive manner, has seven platforms for different purposes.

They are: the National Cyber Crime Threat Analytical Unit, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, the National Cyber Crime Forensic Laboratory, the National Cyber Crime Training Centre, the Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Task Force, the Cyber Crime Ecosystem Management Unit and the National Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre.

Shah added that I4C is organising Cyber Jagarukta Diwas on the first Wednesday of every month. He said that I4C is reaching out to all the states in the country to play an active and pivotal role in this initiative and help promote cyber hygiene.

The home minister said a few other online plaforms have also been developed by the Union Home Ministry. They include the Inter-Operable Criminal Justice System for e-police, e-court, e-jails, 112-based emergency response service, safe city project for a safe environment for women, children and elderly, investigation tracking system for sexual offences, national integrated database on arrested narco offenders, national database of offenders of foreign origin.

A few others are national centre for missing and exploited children, national database on human traffickers, Crime Multi Agency Centre among others.