The Union government’s Cyber Crime portal (cybercrime.gov.in) receives over 3,500 complaints of financial fraud a day, Lieutenant General (retd.) Dr. Rajesh Pant, National Cyber Security Coordinator of India, said on Tuesday. Dr. Pant was speaking at the launch of a book authored by Supreme Court advocate N.S. Nappinai.
“Every day, there are people losing money,” Dr. Pant said, and added, “And these are the people who know there is a [Cyber Crime reporting] portal.”
Widowers and senior citizens were among those commonly targeted, he said. “The prosecution rate is abysmally low,” Dr. Pant complained. “I don’t want to give the percentage because it is insignificant.”
‘Turbulence’ in policymaking
There is a “lot of turbulence” among policymakers around cybercrime, Dr. Pant said. The debate was on “whether we should consider cybercrime as a crime and let the IPC [Indian Penal Code] deal with it, or whether we consider a separate Cyber Security Act, [to deal with] new age cryptocurrencies and ransomware.”
“There’s an exercise going on within the Government of India of revising the [Information Technology Act, 2000], where we’re talking about a new Digital India Act,” he said.
Dr. Pant cited the examples of the draft Telecom Bill, which will replace the Telegraph Act, “and the [Digital] Personal Data Protection Bill, which is oscillating between personal and non-personal data.”
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