When mothers turn dangerous for daughters

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

 I was delighted to find a long lost friend of mine in the social media. She and I were friends right from our early school days and we lost connection when my father got transferred to another city. She found me and I found her after nearly 25 years, and we are mothers of lovely girls. The reuniting story would have happily ended here if not I found a unique coincidence which made me to think about this blog: about times when mothers may turn dangerous for their daughters. Often mothers prefer to make their children introduce to the social media through their own profiles. Many women think it is perfectly all right because the mother and daughter bond would grow, they may get to learn the virtual relationships together and mother will always protect her baby even in the cyber space. Mostly this ‘bringing the child to the social media through the mother’s profile’ takes place when the child is in the age group of 5 to 10/11 , the age when they are vulnerable targets by online groomers who spread their net for trapping children for varied reasons including paedophilia as well as online monetary cheating of the parents through the children. Mothers often think that by introducing the child to the social media through their own profiles they can save the children from such dangers. But how wrong they are....

My friend’s daughter or her mother or many mothers of daughters may never know what dangerous gate they are opening for their daughters. A very recent report from Jharkhand is a living example:  a minor girl was harassed by none other than her mother’s Facebook friend in the Facebook and when the girl confessed the victimisation, the Child Welfare Board suggested that the safest place for the girl should not be with the mother, but with her grandparents (BBC, 13^th February,2014). This is but one example as how mother’s profile can invite danger for the daughter. It needs to be remembered that even if it is a mother who would want her daughter to be safe and secured, in virtual world, a mother’s profile can be equally dangerous for her daughter. The profile that may be created by the mother would essentially be an adult profile and such profiles are never completely immuned from predators. Let me sketch a detail about how the daughters are trapped:

• Tell her the password and she may get to see everything you have ‘liked’..............including news on genocide , rape, child abuse and domestic violence. Think how she would react by seeing the visual images or reading about the hard truth?
• Don’t tell me that you have never received any sexually stimulating message in your inbox ( ok.. it is in your ‘other box’ and you have never opened it). Your daughter is smarter than you to check all messages...... including those you never wanted to see yourself and don’t know how to delete it permanently.
• Thinking that it is you, your ‘friend’ starts chatting with your daughter and passes some bits of adult joke, gossips about you, your neighbour, your school mate or your office colleague. Check the language ....you may have never wanted your daughter to learn or hear those ‘nasty adult language’. Now, imagine her shock when she is rudely introduced to the negative sides of virtual socialising.
• You are in the middle of separation and you have blocked your ex. But he is continuously stalking you through enormous fake profiles and has spies spread across in your own friends-list.  Imagine your daughter’s shock when she starts getting messages from the person you have taught her to hate the most.
• You would get worst surprises when you would get to see your profile flooded with requests for friendship from unknown strangers whom your daughter may have unknowingly tagged or talked about.

          Not to forget that the medium of communication can be mobile phones, I pads or tablets, the children are more tempted to enter the adult world when these gazettes are left unattended  with children whom their parents have taught to unlock and use them without any specific teaching about how to handle the whole thing safely. A mother or a father or the grand parents may feel happy and proud to say that their toddler or their young child knows everything about the digital communication gazette and uses it herself frequently. But I really don’t find anything to be proud for that. The mother may become directly responsible for pushing the daughter to the dangerous world of cyber crimes. In India parental responsibility had been questioned many times by the courts when it is the matter of leaving the child alone for beggary, pushing the child for child marriage etc. But laws have changed and so has the criminal justice understanding of the parental liabilities and responsibilities. Besides the Juvenile justice care and protection Act, The Protection of children from sexual offences Act is one such law which is merciless when it comes to parental negligence for child abuse including online child abuse.

Hence mothers, let your daughters see the virtual world through their own eyes and not yours, but of course with your guidance.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2014), “When mothers turn dangerous for daughters

”16^th March, 2014, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Equality for women still a dream?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

I was reminded of a beautiful reality of being a woman by the official Tweet  of the #UNWomenWatch which showcased this year’s theme for internetnational women’s day as “equality for women means progress for all” ( see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/). But the reality of being woman is not a beautiful experience for all women always.  I would tell why I think so:

Very recently I was invited to be a panellist in a workshop on cyber security by Kerala child rights commission. I had a wonderful experience as a contributor. But I learnt more than what I contributed as a resource person and a panellist. Kerala like many other states in India is a beautiful place with lots of natural resources, beautiful water bodies and excellent schools.  As an outsider to Kerala culture the first thing that striked  me was the dressing of women and the freshness in their look. I noticed that bathing spots like temple tanks, river banks and falls are flocked by local women and children during specific times in the day and men avoid these ‘women only’ places . I was under the impression that social culture in here was very different from northern Indian states, and I started feeling happy about it especially when I get to hear that rape culture is most anticipated in such circumstances in Delhi and nearby places. But when I learnt the reality from other resource persons , I felt more than worried; many children are ‘employed’ by adults to take pictures of bathing women in such public bathing places . Nevertheless, Kerala could be the biggest contributor for Indian adult websites and this may be because of these innocent ‘employees’ or should I say ‘victims’ of the larger porno industry rackets. Kerala is just a model; I did notice many other places in other states where people throng to public bathing places, beaches and even public places like temples armed with smart phones to do their own bits of voyeurism with women’s body. Men may ask the children in their groups to take snaps of bathing  women and later these children would be rewarded by delicious snacks to even one more opportunity to take such ‘reckless’ photographs of women. Have you ever thought of  the scenes in rural of semi urban or even urban places  when women take such snap shots of bathing men or general public where men are heavy in number than women? Such scenes are rare unless the women are not researchers, or journalists or even ‘citizen journalists’ who amaturely contribute news and clippings to the news media. Women cannot be ‘gazers’ in public places to men, leave the bathing men. If a woman dares to ape her male counterpart in this aspect just to show her boldness and try to make men realise the same feeling of embarrassment as women feel by her body language, she may either be subjected to counter sexual harassment by men present there or may be ridiculed by society for being ‘besharam’ ,a girl without any sense of morality.  The society teaches inequality in this aspect from the very beginning of childhood. Resultant, girls grow up to be women constantly being  victims of visual rape or sexual harassment  right from their childhood days not only by  men, but also by young children.

What would be the treatment of these girls and women when they go online with their bathing beauty sex bomb avatar? In most cases these victims of voyeurism may never get to know their victimhood status especially when they belong to the below the poverty line range where they can’t afford to have independent internet connection either through their mobile phones or through the cyber cafes or through home broadband connections.  However, they may become ‘items’ for discussion in the local business junctions, pubs and clubs if their images are made available for public  viewing. No one will actually come over to compensate them or fight for them because they may never be made aware of these as well. However, if the law agencies do come to know about the issue, hopefully actions can be taken against the people involved in the racket right from the kingpin to the children who may have been ‘employed’ by such people to do the ground work. Most likely prescribed penalty could be either a jail term for three years or a fine or both as has been described in S.66E of the Information Technology Act, 2008, or a jail term for three years or five years minimum with a fine, as prescribed by Ss. 67 or 67A of the Information Technology Act or S.354C of the Indian Penal code depending upon the nature of the offence as understood from the images and its effects. The issue of involvement of children may further attract questions of right to protection of children from such crimes as well as duty of the State to prevent the children from getting involved in such acts through various legal provisions.

Who remains unprotected without getting any notion of ‘equality’? Nonetheless these innocent poor women who may be again subjected to such acts by a fresh group of youngsters mentored by some other porn industry rackets.  I feel time has come to teach not only the children, but also their parents about the possible misuse of gadgets by their children and to stop providing ‘soft corner’ for children’s unreasonable demands  for smart phones even if it is a gift for getting excellent marks in the exams.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2014), “Equality for women still a dream ?”  Published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Public Tweets, privacy and necessity to be private in public eyes

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

When  the Bengali cinema lovers just woke up from the first shock of the death of the legendary actress Suchitra Sen, came the news of the death of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor, better known to many as the wife of Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the extremely noticeable union minister of India. People were in awe of Suchitra Sen even when she was lying in Keoratola crematorium ground waiting to be cremated by her daughter. The main reason: she was an extremely personal lady and unlike many of her contemporaries, she neither appeared in public for more than twenty something years, nor did she encourage anyone to know more about her through the electronic media. She was not present in either Facebook or Twitter and no one knew how she looked like after she appeared in her last cinema. We, the generation who grew up watching  Big Bs getting older looks and new actors like Shah Rukh Khan and his contemporaries taking the stage from the older generation, hardly watched any Bengali cinema during the late 80’s or 90’s until Rituporno Ghosh brought back the magic of commercial Bengali cinema back to us in late 90’s and early 2000s. We, like our parents and grandparents, wanted to see Suchitra Sen and be in touch with her, but in vain. Internet and social media never appealed to her to get reconnected with her fans. But when she died on 17^th January,2013 Facebook and Twitter were swept over by comments, condolences and pictures of her. I even came across “Suchitra Sen hot” key words in Google even though the images showed her two granddaughters who are also actors and not her in any such ‘hot scene’. Photographs of her exhausted and distressed daughter and mourning granddaughters in the crematorium were shared by many electronic news channels and these were hot favourite in the net on the day until suddenly the private lady was eclipsed by another very much public figure Sunanda.

          I loved watching Shashi and Sunanda’s photographs over the internet like million others. They were very much ‘public’ and I was one of Shashi Tharoor’s 2,050,605   followers in Twitter. Occasionally I used to  reTweet his very informative Tweets and like many others I took deep interest in  reading the family drama involving his ‘hacked Twitter account’, his wife and a Pakistani journalist( see http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/tharoor-makes-statement-about-marriage-after-wife-sunanda-s-twitter-outburst/article1-1173465.aspx) . I like million others, took him to be a public icon who should be ‘followed’, ‘watched’, talked about and criticised for his views. I obviously was not following Sunanda and I am sure, like me, there are many who started scrutinising her tweets for the first time when Shashi Tharoor gave a joint statement with her  regarding their marriage and  news channels started increasing their TRPs by publicising this. Interestingly, it was not Shashi Tharoor’s tweets which drew attention, it was Sunanda’s ones. Simultaneously, the Pakistani journalist involved therein  probably received millions of visitors for her tweets within a few hours as well. Some of Sunanda’s tweets and Pakistani journalist’s tweets did definitely provide a chain of blame game centring ‘a husband’ and  two women’s relationships with him. I instantly wondered how one can become so much public about one’s assumptions regarding personal relations. This incidence is not an example of bullying; I have seen many instances of death caused by Facebook bullying which were public and the death was caused mainly by the emotional stress the victim went through after realising what the audience (who are watching the bullying communication) would think about him/her. But this is definitely a very bold example of right to express oneself publicly and what could be the consequence in real life. Many academic researches on online victimisation have shown how a particular communication, seeing an unwanted image or even constantly thinking of the issue take a toll on the health of the victim. This may have played an important role in her ‘unnatural’ death along with other factors as are now being revealed by the police, doctors and also by the media. But the question is, does one really need to be this much public in the social media in certain cases even if he/she is a public figure?  Both Sunanda and the Pakistani journalist had pulled in lots of issues in their respective tweets and indeed the diplomatic relation of the two countries is also involved now. This is one brilliant example as how an issue which should have been a private affair, can draw more than desired attention because of the ‘public nature’ of  it. Some may say they are public figures and they should be transparent. But is this much transparency wanted especially when it has resulted in a death? Apart from personal Tweets, the investigation have  also started analysing  CCTV footage, personal text messages , emails that have been exchanged within all three of them. But as the criminal procedures and constitutional rights guarantee, some of such evidences would never be published respecting the right to privacy of the people involved. The ‘public Tweets’ may remain forever giving a sad example as how desire to remain in public eyes through publicly expressing personal thoughts may create an unwanted image which may never be broken and which can become chosen item for trolls for jeopardizing the situation more.

          India is undergoing a tremendous change in legal procedural codes in respect to media reports ( including reports, status updates or tweets by civil society members) of the crimes, privacy of the victim as well as the accused with the case of sexual harassment of law interns by judges. The transition may take our privacy law understandings to new heights which may have positive as well as negative implications. This case of Sunanda Tharoor may remotely add some contribution to the ongoing transition if and when the prosecution starts throwing light on the publicly expressed private comments in the social media and the ‘sharing’ of these by other fellow Tweet-handles. Nonetheless, this would remain an example as where to draw a limit line of privacy in the social media when one is very much public.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2014), “Public tweets, privacy and necessity to be private in public eyes “ 19^th January,2014, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Remedial measures for cyber crime against women: my thoughts

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

16 Days 2013: Presentation by Dr. Debarati Halder, Remedies for Cyber-Crimes against Women from The Prajnya Trust

Viral contents, safety and privacy of women

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

After two days of International day for elimination of violence against women  (November,25)and a day after India celebrated Law Day on November 26, I write this blog with a mixed mind of happiness and confused state. The past weeks were noteworthy: a woman bank employee was attacked inside the ATM in Bangalore by a man who is still playing hide and seek when I write this blog and  the sensational Tehelka  journalist’s  sexual harassment case. Both to me are interconnected; all of them relate to the violence against women in different forms. All three incidences became sensational national news within no time due to viral sharing in the social media. The woman bank employee was attacked by man who was hiding inside the ATM counter with a weapon when she was operating the ATM machine. She fell down in a pool of blood. The attacker left the scene by pulling the shutter down. This was viewed by  millions of viewers again and again who watched the CCTV footage that was first aired by the news channels and then shared by almost every third social media user.  I can’t stop appreciating the two school boys who alerted the police men first. They are the internet generation kids, but  they  probably were more concerned about the crime and the victim whose blood was trickling down from the closed ATM kiosk, than wasting time in recording the scene in cell phones (remember the cartoon that is  doing rounds in  the net where people are taking picture/video -graphing  two hands slowly drowning in a water body?)  . Thanks to the school policies in many cities in India which prohibits children from bringing any digital communication devices to the school including the cell phone.  We are getting wonderful citizens for the future indeed. However, no sooner, there were floods of debates in the Facebook as well as in the news channel web links as to whether the CCTV footage should have been aired at all as this is brutal, violent attack and above all it may alert other such ATM attackers as to how to protect their identity when carrying on such operations. On the other hands many shared and showcased the video to spread the news and alert the police wherever and whenever the attacker can be seen.  Ironically i was also asked by some of my friends to see it and share it. I did neither.

        Following closely this, came the Tehelka journalist’s case. A woman journalist of the Tehelka news group complained to her seniors that she was sexually harassed and assaulted by the editor in chief of Tehelka .The news became extremely scandalous, yet sensational due to the reason that only this year India has finally got a bunch of strict laws against sexual harassment of women, including the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and Tehelka had been a news channel which carried many notable sting operations to reveal many closely kept scandalous secrets. Before the victim or her complaint could become a ‘hot item’ for the web, the police considered the legal safeguards for the victim which is freshly embedded in S. 16 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and warned the general public to not to circulate the details of the victim in any social media. (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/goa-police-record-statements/article5386247.ece). A very much needed warning indeed. When the Delhi gang rape happened almost a year back, the fury of people led the government to consider stricter punishment for rape. Internet was flooded with pictures of a woman in nebulizer who was described as the victim. no one, not even the police could stop such circulation of false, half known details of the victim especially when the penal laws prohibit releasing the information of the victim of sexual assault cases.

        I consider all women victims with equal concern when it comes to the issue of their privacy. While police has taken a brilliant historical step in prohibiting general public from posting any details of the victim, I feel this wise decision should be used for all cases of victimisation of women. The limitation off course exists as the law which closes the chances of floating the information is limited in its scope. But this was one of the main reasons that I preferred to share the ATM attack video as well. Why should a brutal attack on a woman video be shared by general public at all?  I feel it is extreme disgracing for the victim, even though this could have been considered as the right way to alert the general public about the image of the attacker by some. I ask, why not only the image of the attacker? Because the woman in the ATM attack case was not sexually harassed, no one considered sharing of the video as something which should not have been done. A sheer example of when law of the land stops its words, law of human psychology takes place.  Consider when the ATM attack victim would get to see the circulation, she or her daughter/s or her granddaughters may not feel happy about it. Would you reader feel happy to see the viral pictures of your mother/sister/daughter being attacked and lying in a pool of blood?  You may not !

        If you are the one who has posted the ATM attack video or thinking of sharing any information about the Tehelka journalist. Please do consider. Viral contents can show that you are concerned about the issue, but equally it may endanger the victim’s life, her privacy and safety.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Viral contents, safety and privacy of women””, 27thDecember,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Virtual women trafficking sets in : be aware

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DR.DEBARATI HALDER

Using commercial web portals for on-line buying and selling is the new trend that is gripping India fast. For long there were questions of credibility of the on-line classifieds and e-commerce portrayals and many had complained after they were duped by such on-line classifieds. I myself had received and still receive many complaints of fraudulent promises on such web portals, awful customer care responses, delay in completion of the contract or even duping of prospective buyers by ‘vanishing sellers’  once the payment has been made. Typically there are several categories of perpetrators and basically one group of victims; namely the prospective buyers; rather there ‘were’ !  but the power of world wide web proved more than legendary criticism by jean Louis De Lolme  about the  British parliament which says “Parliament can do everything but make woman a man and a man a woman”. Numerous instances are there where World Wide Web had brought in huge surprises including declaring alive men dead, turning innocent children into porn materials and making brilliant students millionaires. But not to forget, it has also brought in virtual women trafficking; a trend that may not have gained major highlights due to erasing nature of the evidences. In the west, Craigslist was one such site which was being used for victimising women by creating the victim’s fake avatars (Halder Debarati,Examining the Scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the Light of Cyber Victimization of Women in India (May25, 2013). National Law School Journal,Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 188-218 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2270061) as one who solicits for sex; the on-line classified site was being misused  by perpetrators who for taking revenge over jilted affair, floated women’s private address, phone numbers and sometimes their very private sexual preferences which would have known  only by the perpetrator himself. There had been instances when such advertisement had lead to rape of the victim by strangers who dropped in at the address provided by the perpetrator. Criaglist started monitoring the contribution of such kinds, especially usage of the same as a dating site when some researchers pointed out how the site was becoming a notorious choice for sexual victimisation women.

        In India for long, on-line victimisation of women had been restricted to social networking sites like Facebook and some adult dating sites. Usage of commercial web-portals for victimisation of women was not  a  ‘trend’ until recently when some one used popular on-line classified Olx.com to actually advertise for  selling  a woman for a paltry sum of Rupees two thousand (see http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-30/india/43526620_1_advertisement-police-station-portal). The advertisement was complete with a photograph of the woman and a corresponding name and phone number of the ‘agent’. Interestingly, the ‘agent’ was none other than another victim of identity theft who claimed that his name has been maliciously used to victimise him. The news media contacted the victim of identity theft and later the country manager of the online classified; subsequently the ad was removed. But now, consider the fate of the woman whose photograph was floated as the main subject of virtual women trafficking. May be, the photograph could have been taken from adult sites to victimise the man who had been shown as the agent; may be it is a real picture of a real victim; but the truth is, campaigning for virtual women trafficking for victimisation of women has set in and it has created a huge example for new trends of cyber crimes and on-line victimisation of women. In India human trafficking, including women trafficking is considered illegal and the Indian Penal Code offers various penal provisions to prohibit sale of women ( see pg 6 in Nair (2007), Trafficking women and children for sexual exploitation : a handbook for law enforcement agencies in India , URL: http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/India_Training_material/Handbook_for_Law_Enforcement_Agencies_in_India.pdf). Nonetheless, these provisions are proving to be mere written laws especially when the online sites traditionally do not monitor the contributed contents. However, this particular site deserves a special applause since they had withdrawn the offensive advertisement within record time after being notified. But still then, the trend of on-line victimisation of women has taken a new path with this incident and I fear this is going to stay.

Hope my fear is proved baseless very soon.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Virtual women trafficking sets in : be aware”, 10^th November,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Whose photo is it when you have a “cover photo” ?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER, PH.D

Every year October brings in nice surprises: the weather changes, festive season starts and women feel more encouraged to stay fit to look good during the festive season. This enthusiasm makes one eager to do lots of outdoor activities and showcase the same in their social media profile cover pictures or profile pictures which would gradually become an identification mark for the profile owner; for example, I got to see beautiful nature photography, painting exhibitions, festive photos in numerous Facebook profiles, which were further shared by other specialised social media profiles meant exclusively for photography or for online painting exhibitions.  Nonetheless, these pictures may include human faces including the profile owners in their finest attires. Needless to say, cover photos or profile photos do provide a glimpse of what the user wishes to showcase to the world; I myself made a cover photo for myself which has my convocation photograph where I was receiving my Ph.d Degree from the hands of the Hon'ble Chief justice of India.   Well, this is the age of “sharing and viewing” and those who have social media profiles should expect minimum privacy when it comes to sharing their lives with their virtual friends. But does that mean that when the social media platform does not guarantee any privacy, our pictures or contents really become public properties?  Even though there are many research papers and works are available on this issue, I thought to contribute my own thought as well.

         As we all know, any social media is duty bound to provide privacy rights to the users. But at the same time, no service provider would actually allow a user to lock everything for him/herself. This defies the ultimate purpose of the social media, i.e. to connect and reconnect people. Hence every user is given options to choose privacy set-ups that a social media channel can offer. This includes self exposure, exposure of friends and exposure of others (who are not listed as ‘friends’ of the profile owner) through one user in various levels.   The most sensitive part of such exposure is definitely the photographs. When a user uploads a picture (whether a nature photography or a picture containing human images), to his social media profile, it is generally expected that he owns the photograph; very technically, he has copyright over it; but not always! There are numerous instances of ‘possessing’ over other’s photograph and using as well as misusing it through one’s social media profile. I myself got to see many such cases which unfortunately involved creation of “Fake Avatars”  (See Halder Debarati,Examining the Scope of IndecentRepresentation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the Light ofCyberVictimization of Women in India (May25, 2013). National Law School Journal,Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 188-218 . Availableat SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2270061) of women with ‘possessed’ pictures. But there are instances when photos of profile owners have been ‘stolen’ and showcased in other’s profiles and such photo possessing does not actually intend to harm the reputation of the actual photo owner. This happens especially when the photograph is exhibited in open access platforms like the ‘cover photo’ of Facebook, or photo albums made intentionally open for public in either Facebook or Twitter.

 It needs to be understood that social media impliedly enters into a contract where it becomes duty bound to respect a user’s copy right. This is evident from not only the Terms that any social media asks a user to go through, but also from  the report option where you would get to see a small note at the bottom “is this your intellectual property”?  In India such sorts of mischievous activities are mostly regulated by the Copy Right Act, 1957 (which has been further amended in 2012). But usage of this law for social media photo right infringement is extremely rare. The reason could be that this Act is mostly used when the intellectual property infringement involves loss of profit.  However, I have seen many people get confused as to whether they can really claim their intellectual property right when the picture is showcased in open access platforms of social media and it had been ‘stolen’. I ask ‘why not’?  But I am very much aware that to prove a claim, a victim may have to run out of her patience especially when the social media itself may ask for the proof to show that the photograph was originally owned by the victim. But still then, it may prove worth fighting for and sharing the experience  as this will actually benefit not only the intellectual property researchers, but netizens in general.

Do let me know your views.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Whose photo is it When you have a “cover photo” ?

”, 25^thOctober,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Bully in… - The Hindu

Bully in… - The Hindu
http://www.cybervictims.org
Madhumita Srinivasan of The Hindu writes on cyber bullying under the title "Bully in.....". http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-youngworld/bully-in/article5234784.ece .This extremely informative write-up carries my feedback. The particular section which carries my feedback is as follows: "You are at risk when

According to Dr. Debarati Halder, Advocate and Managing Director, Centre For Cyber Victim Counselling: “There are several pockets which can trap unaware children who wish to get logged in to get connected to the world. Two such traps are social media and chat rooms.

While most of the social media offer membership to individuals from the age of 13 and upwards, some chat rooms which are part and parcel of email services may not have this age barrier. Online abuse starts when such children grow extremely inquisitive and start participating in the discussions/posts/blogging without understanding where it is leading to.”

“Creating fake profiles using personal information and posting obscene content is one of the most common problems. Misuse of personal pictures and spreading them, and also cases of relationships abuse are also on the rise,” adds Tandon.

How it affects you

Since children are emotionally fragile, abuse of any kind will leave a deep impact on them psychologically. Dr. Halder explains: “When children become victims of bullying, their ego is hurt and they may go into deep depression. Suicidal tendency due to bullying among children is well known now. On the other hand, some children may become extremely deviant and may become bullies themselves.”

“They may even learn illegal and unethical tricks like hacking, creation of fake profiles and so on at an early age to take revenge on their bullies and then may practice this over everyone they like. For children, who unfortunately fall victim, I have noticed many of them (especially girls) becoming very withdrawn. Some have even turned to hackers to remove the offensive posts.”

I would like to share it with all my readers. This is especially necessary for girls since we have seen girls, especially older teens may become easy targets of bullying and then subsequently may fall victims of other types of cyber crimes like creation of "fake avatar", a term coined by me in my article (SeeHalder Debarati,Examining the Scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the Light of CyberVictimization of Women in India (May 25, 2013). National Law School Journal,Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 188-218 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2270061).

Security of women in whose hands?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DR.DEBARATI HALDER,PH.D.

It was an anxious moment for almost every citizen in the country who was waiting to see what awaits the rapists of Nirbhaya, the Delhi gang rape victim. Right on the eve of the judgement day however, I came across another news which led me to think more than I was expected to think on the gang rape verdict: the electronic personal safety device (Epsd) which is on its way specially to protect women in distress ( See http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/watchlike-device-to-alert-kin-of-women-in-distress/article5107722.ece) . I would have forgotten the information as‘regular news’ which kindles our mind only for a minute or two had I not been  called for an interview by PuthiyaThalaimurai, a Tamil News channel, on the judgement day. The breaking news that this TV channel was airing after 2 in the afternoon obviously braced the issue of the verdict, especially the death penalty and people’s emotions related to it. I was asked about my opinion as an advocate, a woman advocate rather. The reporter, while giving his details and interviewing me, told about the 12 year old school girl in Tuticorin, who was brutally raped and then killed by the rapist almost within a week after the Delhi gang rape case happened. While I was giving my views as to what sentence can be expected in this particular rape case, I started realising how far the society has become blood thirsty for rapists. As a woman and a mother of a girl, even I myself would have wanted any one who sexually abuses or assaults another woman or a minor girl, to go through similar or even more physical pain and mental trauma that he would have caused to his victim. However, as an advocate and a legal researcher, I need to be more rational.

But an ‘EPSD’ for protecting women from sexual abusers?

 After going through hoards of news reports about the Delhi verdict and knowing how brutally the little girl in Tuticorin was killed, I could not stop thinking the ‘watch like device’ as similar to geolocator loggers or collars used for tracking migratory birds or wild animals and the women who would be wearing it, as experimental guinea pigs trapped and tracked for no fault of theirs.

I have some points to think it as anti feminist:

i.Even though the operation of it would be manual, i.e, the woman can switch on the device only when she needs to alert her people, what happens when the it gets accidentally ( or even intentionally) switched on by the  harasser if he wishes to show the harassment, disrobing or even rape of the victim to the select audience through even smarter technology ?

ii. Given the fact that laws in India are still confused about tracking a non-criminal person by private individuals including the parents, husbands or other immediate family members, would the privacy-infringement laws be amended again to include this exception? In that case, we need to be ready for the misuse of the law also.

iii. Nonetheless, our Indian society is changing. Won’t this device present another debatable issue similar to dress-code or gagging the right to use mobile phones or internet for women ( I discussed about this in one of my earlier blogs @ http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.in/2012/12/gagging-right-to-digital-communication.html) ?

Well, I am not the only one who is thinking in these lines. Some of the comment –contributors of the news report on the device did express similar concern.

But I must say, the device is a safety device and apparently women would be given freedom to use it or not to use it since The Constitution of India has given equal rights to women to live their own lives. Saying this, I can neither ignore the benefits of the device. Tracking of criminals through GPS system is introduced to Indian police system quite a long ago. Almost all the police head quarters and police stations including stations situated in interior parts of India are expected to stay connected to track the criminal through this; and this device can be an extended mobile version of criminal tracking system, which would be carried by women. It can be expected that in future everyone, irrespective of their gender can use it for alerting the police about the crime and the criminal.

But still then, I can’t stop thinking: has our society gone so low that it has to tie the crime detector on women (my angry soul  can’t stop myself from giving the name to our gender in great dismay ‘the sex-thing’)?

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Security of women in whose hands”, 15^thSeptember,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Protect your image, not the image destroyer

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Very recently I came across the news of a victim of domestic violence who had been badly physically abused. All attempts to hide the bruises in her face were failed. She was in pain for several days before she could actually gather herself up to join the daily chores of life by her sheer will power. When some of us, her well wishers advised her to report the matter to the police immediately, she retreated. Her sole concern was to protect the family. The case seems similar to many of the domestic violence cases in India as well as in many parts of south Asia where the victim refuses to see the police in fear of losing the faith in her ‘dear ones’. The story is no different for on line abuses. Many women are constantly abused on-line by their own family members, especially doubtful husbands, or someone in whom they once had deep trust, like the ex boyfriends or the ex husbands.  In the digital space, it is extremely easy to spoil the image of the woman. Show her actual picture with dirty tag-line, morph her picture to affix her face on nude bodies, show the pictures of vagina and emboss her name on it, rape her virtually by affixing human hands on the picture of her body parts, especially breasts and lower abdomen and allure others to do the same....... these are some of the examples of abusing the image of a woman which had been discussed by many feminist researchers in their write ups including me in my paper titled “Examining the scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the light of cyber victimisation of women in India (See Halder Debarati, Examining the Scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the Light of CyberVictimization of Women in India (May 25, 2013). National Law School Journal,Vol. 11, 2013, pp. 188-218 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2270061). But no wonder, majority of the victims feel extremely embarrassed to visit the police. Why? The case of this particular victim of domestic abuse made me realise the truth again; the woman has to live in the society where her relatives including her father, brother or even husband or even her women folk are also staying. They may never like to be tagged as the relative of a victim of on-line abuse, especially when many still believe that on-line abuses such as these mostly occur due to the victim’s own (mis)deeds. Many victims retreat from reporting the crime in fear for loss of job and loss of reputation not for them, but for the family members including the husband in case he is the abuser himself. Some even fear for loss of reputation of the girls in the family in the marriage market. In some cases, the fear is not baseless especially when the police starts tracing the crime and haunts the offices or workplaces of the accused, who may be directly related to the victim or her family. Also, the police have almost set a trend to tag such crimes as either pornographic crimes, or obscene or sexually harassing crimes... all of which may  bring shame to the victim when she is asked about it in the typical questioning pattern set for physical crimes falling under the broad title of sexual crimes. Thanks to the confused laws, less interest of legal drafts men ,the police authorities and the criminal justice machinery in reviewing recent academic researches on the new developments of  international as well as national laws, the young and enthusiastic police  officers (who are rare in number) never get any chance to book the offences as per their own judgements and the crimes continue to add to the categories of traditionally laid down definitions, giving less chances to examine their  true characters. But unlike the physical cases of image destroying of the victim by hitting her and bruising her face, cutting her skin and flesh and permanently damaging her looks, where the accused could be arrested or the victim could be separated from the accused, in cases of on-line crimes of image destruction, the accused may remain hidden or may carry on further damages while the police carry on further investigation. This is extremely frustrating for the victim. Then comes the juggling of the jurisdiction in cases where the accused reside outside the jurisdiction of the local police. While the Criminal Procedure Code clearly empowers the police to carry on the investigation in such cases, red tapism never leaves. A married woman never wants to lose her time in such tangle especially when she has to look after her children, her job and her family. Resultant, either she herself leaves the battle ground with deep frustration which may even lead her to commit suicide, or may take up some illegal ways to remove the image quickly. The actual image destroyer enjoys his misdeeds with no repent.

But time has come when women, especially married women must take time to save their own physical images rather than saving the image destroyer. Let us hope that the courageous women may face the situation more bravely to save themselves.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Protect your image, not the image destroyer”, 3^rd September,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

An Impressive Independence Day news

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

While the whole nation celebrated the  independence day today amidst various positive ways I found an extremely encouraging information which I intended to share with my blog readers, especially women. The Hon’ble Principle Sessions Judge of Chennai has finally  denied bail petition for an offender who dared to create a fake profile in the Facebook. No, it was not a case of typical victimisation of women through creation of fake profiles; but  it is the other way round: this youth acted as an actor in the Facebook. He impersonated the actor by taking up his screen name “Shantnu Khan” with a slight modification by adding an ‘a’ after‘t’ in the name. When the unreal Shant(a)nu Khan contacted the fans and acquaintances through the fake profile, little did any one notice about the spelling mistake.  When he finally won the confidence of his targets he posed as an actor in distress who needed monetary help to redefine his life; something typical that we get to see in Nigerian phishing cases through emails. By his appealing presence in the Facebook, he could finally gain a little fortune.(See http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/youth-denied-bail-in-fake-facebook-account-case/article5024422.ece). He was arrested by the central crime branch of the police in Chennai who mainly applied S.420 of the Indian penal code which prescribes punishment for cheating and S.66 of the Information technology Act, which prescribes punishment for computer related offences which are referred in S.43 of the information technology Act. The words that are highlighted by both these provisions of the information technology Act while emphasising upon offences are ‘fraudulently’ and ‘dishonestly’. This made up actor duped some for unethical gain through these two ways and he was rightly booked under these provisions. Now note that while S.66 of the Information technology Act is a bailable offence, S.420 of the Indian penal code is a non-bailable and cognizable offence. Interestingly many times crimes booked under both these provisions may be similar in nature, but due to the drafting the laws, the traditional law prescribes stricter punishment than the new law meant for cyber crimes. But this is not a new type of  case. If the readers (especially from the Chennai region) can remember the Chennai Romeo case ( See http://newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/article543074.ece) , the similarities in the pattern of trapping the victims can be found. But in this case, the youth is intelligent enough to do a better homework. The Hon’ble judge has taken right decision in denying the bail. He actually created a good example to show how crime reporting by victims can influence the reporting agency, i.e, the police; and how proper application of the best provisions of laws can finally help the judge to decide the fate of the case.

 I have seen that many cases of victimisation of women through creation of fake profiles die premature deaths with the victim unwilling to report. Nonetheless, few cases targeting the reputation of women take a turn such as this one where S.420 of the IPC can be applied straightaway. But at the same time, it would neither be correct to say that provisions meant to safeguard online reputation including that of women are worthless laws. Needless to say, women victims can make a huge change in sentencing in such cases if they clearly narrate the whole victimisation and the police cooperate accordingly.  Belief in criminal justice system as well as awareness of the police and the victim are key elements to prevent crimes and this is no exception in cases of cyber victimisation of women. Let this 15^th August reinstate the courage in women.

Happy Independence Day!

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “An Impressive Independence Day news”, 15^th August,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

In the name of “surveillance”

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

The past week had been extremely disturbing week for couple of issues: the controversial death of the Dalit boy Ilavarasan and then the Delhi Metro intimacy tape. For those, who do not know about the first case, Illavarasan a Dalit boy, loved and married Divya, who belonged to another Hindu sub-caste. The love marriage did not end happily. It created caste based tension and Divya decided to return to her mother to end the ongoing tension which started harming other people as well. The case took a critical twist with Illavarasan’s controversial death in the beginning of this July.   While this is a knee jerking example of united we try to stand but caste makes us apart, there was one more disturbing factor that was noted by the High court when the autopsy results were scrutinised. As this report suggests, the autopsy of the body of the youth was seen by many outsiders and there are possibilities that the whole process was recorded in private cell phone devices ( See Staff reporter (July 10, 2013), Experts find defects in process, published in The Hindu. URL: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/experts-find-defects-in-process/article4898841.ece). The report also clarified that the experts observed that this recording was done by some police constables. Shocking!  If this report is true then one can understand how much possibilities are there for these clippings to become viral in the net if not checked right now. No law permits private recording of autopsy unless such act is specially permitted for further court cases or research work. Also if this becomes viral, there is every chance that there could be wide range of violence.

I derive at this conclusion that such clipping captured by the internal mechanism system can become viral from the observation of the second case, i.e, the Delhi Metro sex tape case . 

On July 9 almost all the leading newspapers reported that  CCTV footage of couple’s intimacy in Delhi metro stations have reached the porn sites and the cyber crime cell is roped in to probe the matter( See PTI, July9, 2013, Probe ordered after CCTV footage of couples petting in Delhi metro lands in porn sites. URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Probe-ordered-after-CCTV-footage-of-couples-getting-intimate-at-metro-stations-lands-on-porn-sites/articleshow). CCTV footage of protected areas  in porn sites ? Another knee jerking reality that internal system has been unauthorisedly accessed to separate such ‘private moments’ from other regular scenes in the metro stations. It is indeed true that metro stations may have areas which are not illuminated properly and CCTV is essential to check any unsocial activities that may occur in public places including such darker places.  But look at the other side of protective technical system which must have been mishandled by some one who intentionally monitored the footage to take out only these clippings. Government surveillance system has now brought huge embarrassment for these young couples. More so, it would obviously be the woman who would be focussed more than the man in the porn sites.  there are now huge debates going around questioning the behaviour of the young people in public places, government surveillance mechanisms and the law’s double edged effects.  CCTV surveillance has helped to detect many crimes, but this would be one of the finest examples as how the mechanism can be affected internally to defy the surveillance law’s meaningful purposes. Further, I must tell that the victims are lucky as the footage is now under investigation after the Delhi metro rail corporation immediately stepped in for damage control. But imagine the fate of other victims who find their awkward pictures/clippings in porn sites due to intentional mishandling of the data received from internal surveillance mechanism in public places including hotels, shops etc, and have to run from pillar to post to get justice. I was extremely shocked to find that many city police websites do not give proper contact details of cyber crime cells where the victim can physically go and report the problem. Emails and phone numbers given there are mostly non-operative and the victim often gets no response.

Time has come that the officials must be saviours and not another element to escalate the crime.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “In the name of “surveillance””, 11^th July,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Banning the websites for shunning porn

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

It comes no surprise to me when I read the news about Department of Telecommunication’s order to put a blanket ban on 39 websites which are used to create or distribute porn materials (See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Govt-goes-after-porn-makes-ISPs-ban-sites/articleshow/20769326.cms) . This was rather expected after so much hype through public interest litigations, discussions and debates over the issue of websites catering the need for porn. One more issue which motivated me to presume this was the introduction of criminal law amendment act, 2013 which has brought in not only anti-stalking regulation (solely for women) but also anti-voyeurism legislation. The age of consent issue for rape raised lot of debates which further put this ‘old wine in new bottle’ legislation in boiling debates............As can be guessed, this was more than expected.

But do I really support this blanket ban? Perhaps yes. The news that I got to read exhibits a line which is as follows “.............blanket ban on websites that allow users to share pornographic content”. While supporting the ban I am looking not at the issue of banning of websites, but at the issue of preventing the users. This ban, if stands the future debates and waves of legal criticisms, can actually prove positively historic. It would actually prevent victimisation of women in the long run in the World Wide Web by some vindictive users. In my latest publication titled “Examining the scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the light of cyber victimisation of women in India” published in National Law School Journal (2013) 11NLSJ , pgs 188-218 ( the paper can be accessed @ http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2270061) I have elaborately discussed about such vindictive usage of websites by individuals. Such users would be automatically prevented from uploading offensive contents in these websites.  This would further resolve the issue of victim-website (non)cooperation issues in such matters. Indeed, this is a boon for so many women victims who had lost hope for any kind of cooperation from the US hosted websites and who feel extremely reluctant to visit the police.

But again, my rational brain refuses to believe in such kinds of flimsy bans. Like so many other researchers, I have my own share on thoughts regarding pornography. I argued in my above mentioned publication that “the concepts of obscenity and pornography overlap with each other and the shadow of obscenity law still shrouded the indecency law” (See pg 200 in Debarati Halder(2013), Examining the scope of Indecent Representation of Women (Prevention) Act, 1986 in the light of cyber victimisation of women in India” published in National Law School Journal (2013) 11NLSJ , pgs 188-218). Which materials would be considered as ‘pornographic’?  .........the present law probably has no answer. Which are the websites that would fall in the scope of this ban? ........no one actually can answer because sites like Facebook are also used to upload materials which can fall in the category of pornography. Further, the anonymous character of users would stand as a towering problem while detecting privately hosted websites. One site deletion may not prevent creation of another. How many sites would be banned then?  All these questions may need to be answered before taking up a serious step towards implementing the ban.

Somehow I am having this ghastly feeling that adult pornography is there to stay in India and vindictive users would outsmart the government attempts to stop them. Hope I would be proved wrong.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright of this blog. If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (2013), “Banning the websites for shunning porn”, 26^th June,2013, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/