Educational institutions should ensure the safety of students while making use of various platforms for online education, the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has said.
Acting on a complaint from Amal Saji, State ambassador of the Rakshak national awareness campaign for protection of rights of children, the commission, comprising member K. Nazeer, on Tuesday directed the General Education Secretary and the Director of General Education to issue instructions to the institutions not to share the same link for online classes multiple times and instead use new links and new passwords to prevent online crimes.
It called for sensitising students and parents to the need to ensure that outsiders do not get the links for classes or passwords. Each class should use one specific ID and password.
The Education Department authorities were asked to take steps to adopt safety protocols for online classes in consultation with technical experts and cyber experts of the police. Students, teachers, and parents should also be made aware of the online safety measures.
As soon as any illegal activity by a stranger is detected during online classes, class teachers should get in touch with heads of institutions and take steps to inform the police. The State Police Chief should initiate prosecution proceedings under relevant sections in case of any such complaints. Station house officers of the police should be given clear instructions in this regard.
The police authorities should implement awareness activities against cyber crime, the commission said.
In his complaint, Mr. Saji had said that for some time now, cybercriminals had been gaining illegal entry into student online class groups and were harassing students and using offensive and sexually coloured language. Such incidents were keeping students away from online classes, he said, seeking a direction to the departments concerned to take steps to ensure that only students were being added for the online classes and those who hacked the online class links to create trouble were identified and booked.
The police, in their report, said that they had always acted when such incidents had come to their notice or complaints had been received. Before using such online platforms, their terms and conditions should be studied and safety ensured. Schools should also deploy an administrator to monitor if strangers were entering online classes.
The commission said the Education Department and the police should ensure the safety of students during online classes. Use of technology to ensure safety and awareness creation were necessary to ensure that class links did not end up in the hands of strangers.
