New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed Internet search engines like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, besides social media networks Facebook and Whatsapp, to come out with a “firewall” similar to the one developed in China to automatically prevent uploading of any explicit sexual contents like rape and gangrape on the social medium.
A bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Uday Lalit granted three weeks time to the search engines to spell out the mechanism. The bench did not agree with the submissions advanced on behalf of Google and others that they would remove the objectionable content without 48 to 72 hours and there was no need for such a firewall. The bench wondered as to why the internet operators were fighting shying of developing such a mechanism, when China could do so.
Earlier, counsel Ms Aparna Bhat for the petitioner NGO Prajwala pointed out that China had evolved successfully a “firewall” to prevent any offensive material on the Internet. No wonder she said the technology had gained the sobriquet “Great Firewall of China.”
Senior counsel Abhishek Singhvi for Google, however, told the court any such auto block mechanism would seriously hurt the search materials for research and other information purpose. For instance, he pointed out that if any auto-block method is evolved to say block a phrase like “gangrape” etc, then even information on films like Damini would get erased forever.
The film Damini revolved around the gangrape of a domestic maid by some wealthy individuals. On behalf of the Centre, additional solicitor general Maninder Singh informed the court that the Central government had decided to allocate '195.83 cr towards setting up of an dedicated “Cyber Crime Prevention Against Women and Children” (CCPAWC) cell to combat the menace of such horrendous crimes against women and children. The amount has been earmarked for three years.
The apex court had in February 2015 had taken suo motu cognisance of a letter written to the then Chief Justice of India by the NGO Prajwala, along with a pen drive containing two videos highlighting the crime committed by the gang and seeking appropriate action against the culprits, who had the temerity to upload the offensive videos on the internet. The letter was converted into a PIL by the apex court.
In its response the CBI said “it is imperative in the interests of justice that there is a single central institutional mechanism to address cases relating to video recordings of incidents of sexual violence against unknown women and children that are circulated through the internet by various offenders in the country. According to the CBI a common institutional mechanism would enable the timely detection, investigation and prosecution of sexual crimes against several women and children across India that are disseminated through internet-enabled media, so that there is a power deterrent effect on those with such proclivities towards such crimes. The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on February 21.
