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What Does India Need for a Resilient Cyber Ecosystem for Women?

“Given the huge gamut of Cyber Crimes that are targetted against women, the time has come that present laws in India regarding Cyber Security need to be amended and made more tropical in Indian Context,” says Pavan Duggal – an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India, who is also one of the top 10 Cyber Lawyers.

When asked if he thinks the nation is aptly ready to tackle cyber crimes in today’s date, the Cyber lawyer says, “We need an adequate legal framework in India to ensure cyber security for all of its citizens.”

Speaking exclusively to PBNS, Pavan Duggal pointed out the gaps and challenges that exist in the domain of India’s Cyber Security rules, regulations and laws.

 “We have to realise that India like other nations has experienced the ‘golden age of cyber crime’ during the pandemic – and to tackle this, a sound legal framework is needed, especially to counter the cyber menace against women. It includes capacity building and creating more awareness in this particular regard,” the Cyber Lawyers remarks.

Education on Cyber Law, Need of the Hour

Indian Cyber Laws need to be amended to include a lot many things. “For the last many years, I have been saying that time has that we must start inculcating cyber law and cyber security education amongst children,” he says.

Children, in specific, need to be sensitized regarding the cyber security initiatives to protect themselves against harm on the web. This includes girls & women who are targetted with cyber crimes like sextortion, bullying and online trafficking.

“There are many kinds of paedophiles in society. To protect children from these predators, they need to be empowered, in this context, capacity building needs to be an ongoing phenomenon,” Mr Duggal iterates. He adds that both state and non-state actors will have to join hand to empower the digital population of India.

Sensitizing Women about Digital Hygiene

Present to speak in a panel discussion at the launch of NCW’s Digital Shakti 4.0, Pavan Duggal exhorted that this campaign is a classical example of an innovative thought process being done in collaboration with CyberPeace Foundation and Meta.

“With Digital Shakti, an effort is being made to reach out to women and girls across the nation to sensitize them as they floor the Digital Space with changing times. When women are secured, safe, and empowered, the nation is set to grow in the right direction,” he remarks.

Digital Shakti was started in June 2018 to help women across the nation to raise the awareness level on the digital front, to build resilience, and fight cybercrime in the most effective ways.

Through this project, over 3 Lakh women across India have been made aware of cyber safety tips and tricks, reporting & redressal mechanisms, data privacy and usage of technology for their benefit.

Should Laws be Segregated for Different kinds of Cyber Crimes?

The Information Technology Act 2000 needs to be amended so as to make coverage of specific women-centric cyber crimes and cyber breaches. We need to provide more effective ability for women to report such crimes anonymously. For this, the government has now enabled https://cybercrime.gov.in/ reporting portal where one can report anonymously.

“But most significantly, we still have to fight the mindset of the society,” The Cyber Lawyer commented, highlighting that Cybercrime victims, mostly women, believe that they will face harassment at the hand of society as well as law enforcement if they report.

He further suggests that women need to be given enough confidence and encouragement for the anonymity of their reports or any kinds of legal consequences they fear.

“Judiciary and law-making bodies need to go through enough Capacity Building to make the Indian Ecosystem more cyber secure and resilient,” he states.

 

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