MHA plans setup of apex centre to curb cybercrime

New Delhi: The Union home ministry is planning to establish a new apex coordination centre to deal with the incidents of cybercrimes, including financial irregularities, communal material and pornographic content. The ministry has also asked the states to set up similar units in respective capitals.

The ministry has also released an amount of Rs 83 crore to the states for this purpose, which have been allocated under the cyber crime prevention against women and children scheme.

The main control and command centre, known as the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), would be established in Delhi and work in close coordination with the state units.

The Centre would regularly monitor and even block those sites which violate Indian laws related to child pornography and communal as well as racial material.

The unit would also prepare a list of repeat offenders which would be shared with other security agencies through a secure internal network for further investigations in these cases.

Apart from such units in state capitals, the respective governments have been asked to establish cybercrime coordination cells both at the level of headquarters and various districts.

Between 2014-16, there have been as many as 1,44,496 cases of cyber security attacks across the country.

Officials claimed that with increasing use of smart phones, Internet and computers there has been an increase in cases of cyber crime ranging from defacement of government websites, online financial frauds, online stalking and harassment, and data thefts.

Thus government is planning to put in place technologically advanced mechanisms to deal with such incidents of cyber crimes and setting up of such computer centres both at the Centre and States is part of the same initiative.