• 9964432222
  • Mail Us
  • Appointment
  • Locate Us
  • Chat Now
  • Courses
  • Login
  • Register
Manifest IAS
JournalsOfIndia
Advertisement
  • Home
  • SNIPPETSfor Prelims
  • ARTICLESfor Mains
  • BROWSEBY SOURCE
  • DOWNLOADS
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • SNIPPETSfor Prelims
  • ARTICLESfor Mains
  • BROWSEBY SOURCE
  • DOWNLOADS
No Result
View All Result
JournalsOfIndia
No Result
View All Result
Home Law & Policy

Delhi HC on Child Pornography

August 31, 2020
in Law & Policy
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Delhi HC on Child Pornography
51
VIEWS
Share on WhatsAppShare on TelegramShare on Facebook
image_pdfMake PDF

The Delhi High Court has asked the Centre and Internet majors such as Google and Facebook to submit their stand on removing offending images of children and preventing them from resurfacing. The court’s order came while hearing a plea by a woman who wanted removal of her objectionable photographs, which were allegedly taken when she was a minor. The plea stated that at that time, she was studying in a well known school. 

HC Order on Child Pornography

Since the plea was filed in July this year, Google, which owns Youtube; and Facebook, which owns Instagram, have removed around 49 URLs — shared by the enforcement agencies — of the offending contents. However, the court wanted answers on the vexed issue of how content can be blocked permanently from resurfacing once it is identified as offending. Justice Vibhu Bakhru said while enforcement agencies will report the image to Facebook and Google as an when it resurfaces, the problem is that somebody has to keep monitoring it.

The court’s query came after the status report filed by the Delhi government stated that further URLs containing the offending images/ clips have been uploaded on Youtube, Telegram and Instagram. Both Facebook and Google submitted that there are protocols for preventing child pornography and they will file a comprehensive affi­davit disclosing the same by next hearing. 

There has been an increase in the trade of illicit content including use of the dark net. Therefore, the global response to internet child pornography and safeguarding children from sexual abuse requires a collaborative strategy and standardisation of domestic legislation across the world. The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), in its 2018 report on ‘Model Legislation & Global Review’, studied a set of criteria to gain full understanding of national legislation of 196 countries into six parts — definition of child and child sex abuse material (CSAM), offences, mandatory reporting, industry responsibility, sanctions and sentencing and law enforcement and data retention. 

The Indian law is at par with the model law as far as definition of ‘child’ is concerned. It is true that while a person under the age of 18 may be able to freely consent to sexual relation, such an individual is not legally able to consent to any form of sexual exploitation, including CSAM. Therefore, defining ‘anyone under the age of 18 years as a child’ across the globe is a welcome move. The model law also requires the term “CSAM” to be defined separately rather than “child pornography” to more accurately describe the criminal nature of such material and to avoid any confusion regarding consent. It should also include technology-specific terminology, which India does.

The model law requires that ‘knowing possession’ and ‘knowingly downloading or knowingly viewing’ should be an offence. The IT Act (Section 67-B) says that whoever ‘collects, seeks, browses, downloads’ child pornography is an offender. Whether the act is done accidentally or knowingly is left for court’s interpretation as there is a vital difference between inadvertently viewing an image and actively downloading. The POCSO Act punishes only those who store child pornographic material for commercial purposes. This caveat of ‘commercial purposes’ must go and mere possession of CSAM should be made a criminal offence. Similarly, offering information on where to find CSAM by providing a website address should also be criminalised, which is missing at present.

Another parameter of the model law is mandatory reporting of CSAM by the ISPs. ISPs are the channels through which proliferation of CSAM activities take place. It is, therefore, crucial that ISPs report illicit contents discovered on their networks to law enforcement agencies or another mandated agency as soon as they become aware of it. However, in India, the intermediaries are not responsible for communicating third party information to any agency under the current law. In the Shreya Singhal case (2015), the Supreme Court (SC) held that either a court order or notification by the appropriate government or its agency is a must for the ISP to remove or disable access to illicit material. Thus, ISPs are not suo motu responsible for notifying the law enforcement agencies of any CSAM it carries through its channels.

image_pdfMake PDF
Source: The Hindu
Tags: Prelims

Related Posts

National Policy on Biofuels, 2018

National Policy on Biofuels, 2018

May 19, 2022
The first Global Report on Assistive Technology (GReAT)

The first Global Report on Assistive Technology (GReAT)

May 18, 2022
What is the Places of Worship Act?

What is the Places of Worship Act?

May 18, 2022
First ‘smoke free’ state in India

First ‘smoke free’ state in India

May 17, 2022
SSR and SRIMAN Guidelines

SSR and SRIMAN Guidelines

May 14, 2022
FSSAI formulates regulations for ‘Ayurveda Aahara’ products

FSSAI formulates regulations for ‘Ayurveda Aahara’ products

May 13, 2022
National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – 5

National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – 5

May 10, 2022
Assam Cattle Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2021

Assam Cattle Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2021

May 9, 2022
Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

May 9, 2022
Unique Disability ID (UDID) scheme

Unique Disability ID (UDID) scheme

May 7, 2022
Please login to join discussion

Our Offline Classroom Student

PRELIMS 2021 POLITY QUESTIONS ANALYSED

https://youtu.be/5q8hBcRGhAs

PRELIMS 2021 HISTORY QUESTIONS ANALYSED

https://youtu.be/v0SIZ7SUybg

CONGRATULATIONS TO 2020 TOPPERS !!!

Rank 25 Vaibhav Rawat 

Rank 218 Kankanala Rahul Reddy
Rank 385 Sagar A Wadi
Rank 504 Malashree MV
Rank 573 Shridevi B V
Rank 707 Mamatha G

COURSES OFFERED

PRELIMS SURESHOTS

May 2022
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031 
« Apr    

Browse by Category

  • Agriculture
  • Disaster Management
  • Economy
  • Environment
  • Ethics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Geography
  • Governance
  • History
  • Law & Policy
  • Opinion
  • People in News
  • Places in News
  • Science & Tech
  • Security
  • Society
  • Sports
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tags

AIR BBC Business Standard CNN Deccan Herald DownToEarth Down to Earth DTE Economic Times ET GS-1 GS-2 GS-3 GS-4 Hindustan Times IE India & the world Indian express India today Indiatoday Kurukshetra LiveMint Mains News News Paper Newspaper PIB PIB & The Hindu pre Prelims PRS India RSTV Science Reporter Survey The Hindu The Hindustan Times The India Express The Indian Express The New Indian Express Times of India TOI TOPPERS UNDP website Wikipedia Yojana
JournalsOfIndia

Our vision is to orient the readers to grasp the facts objectively and analyse critically. In the rush of reaching first to the readers, the websites miss the balanced opinion, which is the need of the hour. We aim to reach the readers with more crispness, preciseness and relevance. We bring the articles in UPSC way for the civil services aspirants and the Wisest Way for general readers.

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Disaster Management
  • Economy
  • Environment
  • Ethics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Geography
  • Governance
  • History
  • Law & Policy
  • Opinion
  • People in News
  • Places in News
  • Science & Tech
  • Security
  • Society
  • Sports
  • Uncategorized

Browse by Tag

AIR BBC Business Standard CNN Deccan Herald DownToEarth Down to Earth DTE Economic Times ET GS-1 GS-2 GS-3 GS-4 Hindustan Times IE India & the world Indian express India today Indiatoday Kurukshetra LiveMint Mains News News Paper Newspaper PIB PIB & The Hindu pre Prelims PRS India RSTV Science Reporter Survey The Hindu The Hindustan Times The India Express The Indian Express The New Indian Express Times of India TOI TOPPERS UNDP website Wikipedia Yojana

Newsletter

The most important UPSC news and events of the day.

Get Journals daily newsletter on your inbox.

© 2020 JournalsOfIndia - A free initiative by Manifest Team.

  • Login
  • Sign Up
  • Home
  • SNIPPETS
  • ARTICLES
  • BROWSE
  • DOWNLOADS
No Result
View All Result

© 2020 JournalsOfIndia - A free initiative by Manifest Team.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In