Internet no child's play

Westerners do not use mobile phones and social media as much as possible if these electronic facilities interfere with their work or curricular activities. Most of them on Facebook, twitter and Whatsapp are available online only during their free time. The trend of individualism in the West often reflects in the nature of their cyber use too. Africans and Asians (especially those in Indian subcontinent) are more collectivists and do not mind calling or texting others, day and night, even if it interferes with their work or curricular activities. For them, social life is often well-knit with their educational, professional and career lives and the general lack of distinction between work and leisure time ethics among Indians reflects in their use and abuse of mobile and internet too.

Although many Indian parents as well as their children are aware of ethical consequences of the abuse of electronic gadgets, most parents and so, most children here are not aware of legal consequences of electronic abuse. They are not aware that cyber use can and will leave cyber evidence of their use. Since the Indian cyber laws (IT Act 2000 amended in 2008) and also laws to prevent child abuse (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012) are strong and cyber evidence is legally valid here, any minor abuse of electronic technology by and on children can be punishable leading to imprisonment.

Serious cyber offences here include instances of elders abusing children through the cyber space. On request from a 25-year old male non-resident Keralite, a 17-yearold city girl sent her own 26 nude selfies taken from different angles through FB chats. The youth had shared his own nude selfies (including a few images of his erected penis and semen) with her. Later, when she found that he has been sharing her photos with his friends, she attempted suicide but was saved. Subsequently, she collected relevant cyber evidence and complained to the police. The offender was arrested at Cochin airport and jailed for months before being released on bail. The case is pending in the court.

A17-yearold girl student of a leading engineering college in central Kerala had shared around 50 nude photos and 4 videos through FB chat room on request from a 16-yearold Delhi boy, who befriended her on FB. In northern Kerala, a 15-yearold city girl sent two selfies of her breast on request from a male classmate through FB chat room. The girl’s mother got wind of it and alerted the police. A 17-year old boy in northern Kerala recently “invited” a 21-year old engineer girl for sex by blackmailing her with nude photos of her younger sister (who was his junior at school and with whom he has had sex seven times between his age of 15 and 17). Although the father of these two girls approached the police for action against the boy, he was not willing to lodge an official complaint.

The general trend among children includes hacking too. In a leading city school in southern Kerala, a group of 16- year old boys conspired to get their prefabricated and vulgar questions answered by their own male classmate (who was the prospective school leader) through various telephonic conversions with a plan to share these recorded telephone conversions with teachers and friends. They hacked into his FB account and then posted messages involving vulgar contents and obscene elements about teachers and students of the school. As these vulgar messages appeared in public through the boy’s FB account, the school authorities initially blamed him for his illegal and unethical actions. However, experts probed and found that it was classmates’ ploy to prevent his becoming the school leader.

Shockingly, a fabricated photo of the principal (a priest) standing next to a lady teacher was posted in public, probably to demoralize the principle and prevent further action against hackers. The school authorities apprised the police and conducted a cyber-awareness programme with the help of cyber forensic experts and the DGP. Now, is there a rural- urban divide among children in cyber misuse and cyber crimes? Not many studies have been carried out. However, there are cases of rural abuse. The FB account of a popular lady teacher belonging to an elite rural family in central Kerala was found hacked recently. The police found that the hacker was a 17-yearold boy from another village in the neighboring district and that he did this for a Rs. 2000 offered by a male adult who wanted to demoralize the popular teacher.

Posting kid’s pic online can land you in jail

In addition, when there are relevant laws in India to protect children, there are cyber abuses and crimes on children by their own parents and other close relatives. When Indian rules insist that written permission is necessary from all stakeholders for publishing individual as well as group photos on the Internet, parents tend to post partially or even fully nude photos of their tiny children on FB, Whatsapp and various online albums. Although police cases of children challenging such unethical practices by their own parents (and the court sending these parents to jail) are coming up in the West, such a police case has not so far been reported in India. However, if Indian children complain, their parents will have to face the due punishment.

Beware of msg replication tool

Children from rural area also abuse electronic space. A 17-year old village girl found that her neighbour (an adult male) had been automatically receiving copies of all her incoming and outgoing messages. This author had to convince the police that there are message replication software tools which when installed in a mobile phone can automatically replicate and send copies of messages from this mobile to another mobile phone, silently and unethically. The police later revealed the crime story as thus: When the boy found out that the girl’s mobile had reached his friend’s shop for repair, he got such a software tool installed by the technician and utilised its facility to receive her messages to and from her friends and relatives! The police later arrested the boy.

Tell your kids pros and cons

The responsibility primarily lies with parents. Without their support, any proactive role voluntarily taken up by teachers (and also by the government and other socially committed people) will not be fruitful. Parents are expected to convince children that cyber world is not a place to do things they dare not in the physical world and that any mobile or any computer will leave digital evidence of their use, misuse and also abuse in its memory. Children must be told many features of the cyber social media and the other related cyber platforms are not meant for those below 18 years. To ensure transparency at home, parents should ensure the home computer is placed in the open so that its screen is always visible to them. They should ensure children are kept away from online fundamentalist and extremist resources, which spread information that can cause communal disharmony.

Through student fora like student police cadets, scouts and guides and NCC and various teacher channels like IT@School, authorities should spread awareness among children on the safe use of internet and digital gadgets besides ethical as well as legal consequences of cyber space abuse. Language teachers should educate students that even the wrong usage of words (especially English words) can land them in trouble and that children are not permitted to text whatever they want to in whichever words they prefer. By giving undue importance to various “well-informed” online resources, children often give up benefits of love, care, security, knowledge and wisdom provided by the traditional education imparted by their parents and teachers. Unless children are trained to balance between global online extravaganza and the local, traditional and societal demands, they will lose their balance in their societal life.

The Child Rights Commission is expected to (1) intervene in cases related to cyber abuses by and on children by standing by the child-victims; (2) instruct the police to immediately and officially (or even forcefully, if the situation demands) remove from the internet, obscene and vulgar materials (for example, child pornographic images and videos) related to victims and also to immediately collect the valuable digital evidence of the case and keep in safe custody for investigation; and then, (3) to help victims fight the case against the criminals.

Cops without gadgets lord over skeleton stations

In spite of owning and running CyberDome and a Hi-Tech cell in the state and a cyber cell in each district, the state police is technically neither strong nor efficient to handle cyber-related threats by and on children. Shockingly, none of the cyber forensic experts police is qualified in cyber forensic technology. All of them depend heavily on a few forensic software tools to collect valuable scientific evidence. They do not have modern gadgets to probe cases involving electronic gadgets.

Now the single cyber cell in every district is staffed only with one or two trained policemen to forensically investigate cyber-related cases and so, cases of cyber abuse by and on children are often relegated to the secondary position at each police station. To get proper attention to the large number of cyber cases related to children, one such cyber cell is expected to be attached to every police station
in the state. The police research wing must step up its activities by scientifically studying cyber abuses by and on children and also propose constructive and practical actions to prevent such abuses, all with the help of Malayali cyber forensic researchers working for investigation agencies and multinational companies across the world.

The legal system is bound to ensure digital evidence (Call Details Records of the criminal and media access control addresses of hackers) is collected immediately and scientifically preserve the evidence. Any lapse on this can be disastrous to child victims. Call Details Records of culprits from telecom providers are available only in the first year. As there can be a delay in lodging the case with the police and a further police delay in submitting FIR, a delay or lapse in collecting and preserving CDRs can result in the loss of valuable digital evidence.

(The author is International Cyber Forensic Consultant)