The recent incident of a young girl in Salem committing suicide due to the posting of her morphed pictures on a fake profile in her name on Facebook has resulted in unfair criticism against the police accusing the uniformed force of inaction and acting only after receiving bribes.
Unfortunately, these unfounded allegations have diverted attention from some pertinent issues in connection with enforcement of Indian laws vis-à-vis Facebook.
A point of criticism is why did the police not block the fake Facebook profile immediately? The reason is simple -- they can’t.
Only Facebook can block a page and it exercises this discretion as per its Facebook Community Standards -- not Indian law.
Facebook does not provide the police with any special powers to immediately block a profile even if the police have received a cognizable complaint in this regard.
Any user including the police can report abuse. But, if Facebook concludes that there is no violation of Facebook Community Standards after reviewing the report, there is little that the police can do to coerce Facebook to act in accordance with their request.
Delay
Another point of criticism is the delay in identifying the culprit who created the page. Every time a person logs on to the Internet, he does so with a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address.
The expeditiousness in identification of the culprit is directly proportional to the speed with which Facebook provides the IP details of the person who created the fake page -- details only they have.
Instead of immediately acting on the requests of the police, Facebook routinely takes up to a month to respond.
In the case in question, even though the request for blocking the page and providing IP details was sent to Facebook on June 24 (the case was registered on the evening of June 23, 2016) through the Facebook Law Enforcement Online Request portal, Facebook only blocked the site a few hours after the lady committed suicide on June 27 and sent the IP details only on the June 28.
On their part, the police completed their investigation and arrested the accused within 12 hours of receipt of the IP details from Facebook.
Another criticism
Another criticism levelled against the police is why did the police which could arrest the accused within 12 hours of the burial of the young woman, not act earlier.
This criticism completely misses the point that the investigation of the case was contingent on Facebook sharing the IP details.
But, instead of blaming Facebook for inaction, it is the police who are being unfairly targeted.
The pace with which the case was detected after Facebook provided the police with the required details are a testament to the technical skill of Tamil Nadu police in cyber crime investigation. Ironically this is being levelled as a criticism.
It has been alleged that the police acted only after receiving a bribe.
Unfortunately, it is true that when the father visited the Cyber Cell on June 25 to find out about the status of the case, a Head Constable obtained a bribe of Rs 2,000 from him on the completely false promise that he would facilitate an expeditious reply from Facebook, something he could in no way have done.
However, it must be stressed that this had no bearing on the investigation since the requisition to Facebook had already been sent on June 24. The Head Constable has been placed under suspension and a departmental enquiry has been initiated against him for his reprehensible conduct which has brought disrepute to the police force.
The police are going to continue to struggle to provide relief to the victims of such cases unless Facebook suspends a page the moment it receives a request for blocking it from the police and shares the IP details instantaneously. If Facebook doesn’t voluntarily take these steps, Parliament or the executive must step in, to protect innocent people from the spectre of cyber crime.
(The writer is Superintendent of Police, Salem District)
