Citizens now can report cyber crimes online

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday inaugurated the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and also the dedicated National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal to the nation, a citizen-centric initiative that will enable citizens to report cyber crimes online.

This state-of-the-art Centre is located in New Delhi.

The scheme to set up I4C was approved in October 2018 at an estimated cost of Rs 415.86 crore to deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner. It has seven components — a national cyber crime threat analytics unit, a national cyber crime reporting portal, a national cyber crime training centre, a cyber crime ecosystem management unit, a national cyber crime research and innovation centre, a national cyber crime forensic laboratory ecosystem and platform for joint cyber crime investigation team.

At the initiative of the Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA), 15 states and Union Territories (UTs) have given their consent to set up regional Cyber Crime Coordination Centres at their respective regions, a government statement said.

“National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in) is a citizen-centric initiative that will enable citizens to report cyber crimes online through the portal. All the cyber crime related complaints will be accessed by the concerned law enforcement agencies in the states and UTs for taking action as per law.”

This portal was launched on pilot basis on August 30, 2019 and it enables filing of all cyber crimes with specific focus on crimes against women, children, particularly child pornography, child sex abuse material, online content pertaining to rapes and gang rapes.

So far, more than 700 police districts and more than 3,900 police stations have been connected with this portal, said the statement. After its successful completion, this portal can improve the capacity of the law enforcement agencies to investigate the cases and will improve success in prosecution and also focuses on specific crimes like financial crime and social media related crimes like stalking and cyber bullying.

This portal will also improve coordination amongst the law enforcement agencies of different states, districts and police stations for dealing with cyber crimes in a coordinated and effective manner, said the statement, adding the MHA is committed to provide and create an eco system for dealing with the cyber crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.

“In future, this portal will provide for chatbot for automated interactive assistance system to the public for guidance on cybercrime prevention and how to report incidents on the portal.”