Madras High Court order can help cyber crime probe

Hyderabad: The intervention of the Madras High Court on the issue of social media companies not providing details in cases of cyber crime has given hope to investigators.

The Madras High Court has issued notice to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and Google and internet providers after it came to know during the hearing of a petition that social media companies do not provide details when sought by investigators probing instances of cyber crime.

Investigators say that due to non-cooperation of social media companies, they face difficulties in solving cyber crime cases.

Speaking of the important roles that social media companies play, Mr Ch. Y. Srinivas Kumar, assistant commissioner of police, cyber crimes, Cyberabad, said, “It is necessary to discover where and who the criminal is before we can think about making an arrest. This is a problem with online crime because there are so many ways to hide one's identity.”

He said there were numerous services that mask a user’s Internet Protocol address by routing traffic through various servers, usually for a fee.

Mr Kumar explained, “IP (Internet-Protocol) address and time are the key ingredients to identify the suspect. Unless until internet providers and social media companies cooperate with the investigators it would not possible to detect the offence perpetuated online.”

He said that the police every day received more than half-a-dozen complaints, most of them related to online fraud. 

There were lots of requisitions pending with internet providers and social media companies with regard to the cases registered in cyber cell of Cyberabad.

Mr Kumar said jurisdiction was one of the major issues in cyber crime investigation because of its universal nature, as cyber space eradicated the concept of territory. Cyber crimes are different from conventional crimes, he said.

As far as cyber crimes that took place in India are concerned, Section 75 of the Information Act gives special powers by getting help from outside the jurisdiction of a state to collect evidence and help from the law enforcement agencies.

Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat  said that though they face difficulties from some internet service providers, others were responding positively in helping the police detect crime by providing required information.