Now India can boast of an anti-stalking law

http://www.cybervictims.org

The December 2012 brutal Delhi rape had given birth to numerous issues. This included knee jerking awakening regarding the safety of women and a feeling of insecurity due to too many laws but too less execution of them. The incidence had also showcased the need of new sensible laws which can protect women not only in theory, but also in practice. The best result of this painful incidence is probably the Justice Verma committee report on proposal to amend the criminal law of India. The report did promise to fill in many gaps which were left for so long by numerous law amendment committees. Undoubtedly one of the notable moves by this committee was giving legal recognition to the offence of Stalking.  In my blogs and many of my write-ups I had pointed out that we in India really needed a legal recognition for stalking. I had also pointed out in our 2010 report “Cyber victimization in India : A baseline survey report” that many individuals, including victims do not actually understand the nature of stalking, especially online stalking. In this report we had analysed online stalking as follows:

“In real life, stalking   if we analyze the US laws on stalking, the nearest explanation of cyber stalking could be found in Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 which  amended Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) through Section 113 to include the use of any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet for the purpose of  ‘stalking’ , annoying and harassing others as penal offence. This US provision attempts to explain cyber stalking as follows;

Cyber stalking= following the victim’s internet activities  + using digital device, software to create  harassing, threatening , abusing mails/messages  etc + transmitting the said mail to the victim’s inbox and / or victim’s friends or relative’s inboxes + successfully creating fear, annoyance, irritation harassed feeling in the victim.

We feel those who never understood how stalking may have happened or whether stalking has at all happened or not, perhaps feel confused with the whole component parts of the stalking. In one word, when ‘following’ is added by Mens rea to commit harm and it is successfully digitally carried out, we can say cyber stalking has happened.”[1]

I am extremely happy to note that the Verma committee report in January, 2013 has built up anti stalking law quite in the same tune. The report suggests introduction of S.354C(1) to the Indian Penal code which defines stalking in following lines[2]

“Whoever follows a person or contacts or attempts to contact such person to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such person or whoever monitors the use by a person of the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication or watches or spies a person in a manner that results in fear of violence or serious alarm or distress, in the mind of such person or interferes with the mental peace of such person, commits the offence of stalking.”

Note that the proposed law specifically mentions the behavioural pattern in the offence of stalking which we in 2010 report summed up by stating  “when ‘following’ is added by Mens rea to commit harm and it is successfully digitally carried out, we can say cyber stalking has happened”. The proposed law has mixed up offline as well as online stalking giving much scope to experiment with S.66A of the Information Technology Act,2000(amended in 2008)(punishment for sending offending messages through communication services etc). The punishment that the proposed legal provision offers is however expanded from 1 year to 3 years and also with fine. This can actually bring the offence at par with S.66A of the IT Act.

          It is expected that this proposed provision would finally prove beneficial to harassers who take up stalking specially through cyber space to victimise others. Even though the proposed law is expected to draw criticism for its proviso and also for its effectiveness in the long run, it is still a welcome move.

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), “Now India can boast of an anti-stalking law”, 25^th January,2013, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/”

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[1] See pg.12, Halder, D., & Jaishankar, K. (2010). Cyber Victimization in India: A Baseline Survey Report. Tirunelveli, India: Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling. Accessed on 25-01-2013

[2] See pg 437 of the Report of the committee on amendments to criminal law accessed from  @ http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-justice-js-verma-committee-report-on-amendments-to-criminal-law/317383-53.html on 25.01.2013

Mobile phones : some thoughts about victimisations done through it

http://www.cybervictims.org

In my law school days, I came across with a family who had gone through land line phone stalking for continuously six years. The stalker took pain to find out the name of the registered customer for  the number, the neighboring homes etc by manually scrutinizing the huge public phone directory itself. This incident happened nearly ten years back when stalking by phone was an unknown term   in India. The victim family felt terribly humiliated, but kept the matter to themselves because when they contacted the local police, they were advised to switch to new communication media , the mobile phone. They were told that   mobile phones were better as there were no such easily available public directory. Well….ignorance is no bliss. Mobile phones are vicious devises indeed. I finished my law degree and joined the profession. One day I too owned a brand new mobile phone and felt as secured as the victim-family because I circulated  my number to only chosen few. One fine day I found a charming voice of a caller who randomly pushed the buttons and got my voice to hear. He felt it was the best option to flirt with women. But by then I was so busy with my baby daughter that I preferred to hear to her yelling rather than hearing this mobile romeo. I handed over the phone permanently to my husband and the mobile romeo obviously didn't prefer to hear male voices, neither felt like inquiring about the female voice which suddenly changed into a male voice . 

  But this may not be the case always for every one. There are many ignorant 'first time mobile owners'  like me who use social networking sites as public platforms to announce their “prize numbers”. Resultant they become the prize catch for many predators also. I understand that there are three typical routes to harass women by mobile numbers: 1. leaking the number in one of the numerous adult website and cache the number so that in the search engine this number will appear again and again; 2. leaking it in the social networking sites with detailed name and informations ,so that any one and every one of the 'cyber socialites' can have ‘good time’ with the victim; 3.hacking the mobile network to tap the calls and thereby making life miserable for the victim. We do have laws in India to prevent such data leaking. But I consider them very weak when compared to the laws of US or the UK. Yes, we do not have public directory for mobile phone numbers like what we did have for our land numbers, but there are numerous data available in the cyber space by which the victim can be found out and if the harasser is as desperate as the stalker I mentioned above, such easily available data can work better than public directories. 

But, very few note that the ‘safety pin’ actually remains with us from the beginning and we, the general mobile phone users tend to ignore the need to pin up the hole. The safety pin could be used when filling up the profile for the social networking sites, when emailing with ‘signature’ or even when exchanging mobile phone numbers with virtual friends etc by following some awareness notes such as:not to publish the mobile phone number anywhere, not to circulate it among not so known acquaintances etc .

However, I do note that while filling up the form for BSNL services, we are required to choose whether to go for ‘national do not call registry’ or not. No this does not serve any purpose when you speak about personal data protection for mobile  customers from potential harassers who may go for data mining and leave threatening /annoying messages  ( the objectives of the NDNCR clarifies that ‘message’ means only unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) .See http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp?reqtrack=qvwhHPNkiQGNDNpwrlvARvsog) But yes, if seen from a broad perspective, this could to a certain extent prevent messy situations that may result due to cloud computing. However, even though harassments through mobile phones are now being considered as one of the core cyber crimes, more stricter laws (well, we do have I.T Act, 2008 to penalize such communications, but it still needs to be broadened) may be needed to restrict unsolicited data mining.

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. (2010), “Mobile phones : some thoughts about victimisations done through it”, 29th November,  2010, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

The lawyer says: what are the Indian laws to prevent cyber stalking?

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

The American laws, the English laws and even the Australian laws identify cyber stalker as one who has a *motive to harm* the followed person.

Indian law specifically does not mention anything about stalking or cyber stalker. If you want a very technical legal answer , “cyber stalker” is actually a free bird in India ( as there is no mention of “cyber stalking” in any laws in India). But wait a second. Cyber stalker, you are an offender in India too. How? Cyber stalker peers into the privacy of the individual with an intention to *disturb* the privacy, which is very well protected by information technology law of India. Then how can we teach these “criminals” a lesson or two? I have seen generally after some strong steps taken by the victim ( if the victim is strong enough to face the situation) , the stalking habit of the perpetrator die down. But when it goes beyond control, you have no other way but to contact the police. Even though the present Cyber law is not equipped enough to punish the stalkers, the Indian Penal code has *strong words* to protect harassment which goes very near to the characters of stalking. Hence remember, once a stalker is convicted by the police, he /she can go through rigorous punishments under both IT Law as well as the Indian penal Code. But then how long will it take for the whole process of “cat chasing and capturing the rat”? My friend “Cyber Cop” assured me that if the victim cooperates , the police can nab the “criminal” and start the judicial procedure to punish him for his misdeeds within a month ( when the stalker resides within India) to six months( when the stalker resides outside India) . However, the grim picture is, still now victims don’t feel comfortable to report.

But readers, don’t think that the cyber stalker can stop within the blue screen of the computer. I know several cases where the stalking actually started inside the net and the NET spread outside the internet also. In my earlier posts I have given many examples of such online –offline stalking. I am sure, many of you my readers, can relate the story to your own cases, even the cases of some of your friends too. Do you know why such incidences are becoming “common stories”? It is because of the Victims of stalking. Be it a man or woman , the victim feels scared first and then feels “why should I report ?” better hide than be object of discussions .Come on, if you don’t report then who else will?

Are you pulling your friend in the vicious net?Cyber stalking, Part:2

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/
contd from my earlier post....

The last point that I mentioned in the previous post was about CCing the mails. Believe it or not, this attracts cyber stalking as well. I was completely oblivion of this fact (excuse my innocence) until and unless one senior friend of mine pointed out that sending bulk mails is actually a way of pulling your friend in the vicious net . You may have several people in your “list” to inform the good news or even a bad news. You don’t have time to mail every id individually. But then you must remember that the recipient may misuse the email ids he receives in the bulk mail. Well it need not be him, but it could be someone else who may have hacked his email id. Such bulk mail gives a large number of “games” for the hacker and in no time you may find your own email id is hacked as well.

But could CCing be so dangerous? Probably yes. I have one friend who had two ids in her list and whom he used to mail regularly. Well, he knew that these two people had a romantic inclination towards each other in real life but he didn’t know that the relationship has turned sour. The female recipient had put the mail in the spam list and never looked into the content. The male recipient found out his long lost ex sweet heart and immediately took up the thread to continue virtual war. He mailed almost all the recipients of the said mail to know her where about. Some knew the relationship some didn’t know. Virtually he traveled half the globe, reached hundreds of friends and made the girl understand he still remembers her “rude” rejection. Now who is to be blamed for rolling the ball? My poor friend had to close his “doors” in the internet for few months until the war died down again with the help of another common friend. But this is not an uncommon story. This happens to many email users who unknowingly invite trouble for their friends. I suppose the only way to avoid such embarrassment is to stop CCing any personal mail to your “bulk of friends”. Instead, BCCing is better where you may not only save time but you can also spare your friends from falling prey to stalker.

Cyber Stalking in the Indian cyber space: Part 1

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

This is something which caught my attention way back in 2005-6, when I started doing independent researches on cyber crime targeting individuals. Let me begin as how cyber stalking starts. A very easy way to attract stalker is to *publicize* yourself in the internet. This can happen through numerous ways, such as:
1. through your blogs,
2. your social networking profiles
3. your websites
4. your albums in the internet
5. your views for other’s blogs
6. and last but not the least, when you are being CCed by your friend in a bulk message.
I have watched that when you start a blog, you are given option to invite “outsiders” to visit your blog and comment on your blog. You can strictly moderate the comments. But many don’t do so and thereby giving an open invitation to many troubles, one of which is obviously stalking. Social networking also encourages stalking. It is rather an open gateway for stalkers to come in and start stalking especially when you have not used “lock buttons”. The same goes to your website, your albums and your views for other’s blogs. Infact it is true that people express their views, albums, about themselves etc in the internet to get noticed by the millions of net users worldwide. But then do remember that you are being followed by thousand pairs of eyes. Now, we must remember that all stalkers are followers, but all followers are not stalker. Who are the “followers”? Several cyber psychological, cyber criminological, cyber legal articles in peer reviewed journals as well as popular magazines talk about the nature of cyber stalker. One can understand that when a “follower” harmlessly follows any cyber “netizen”, say for example, his blogs, his website his social networking profiles and finally tries to reach him / her through his contact informations, preferably emails etc , he may come with a genuine interest to know the person he is following. He is not a typical “stalker” because he does not intend to harm the followed person. Well, I do follow numerous people in the net. For instance, I am a die hard fan of actor Ashis Vidyarthi, the noted “criminal” of many block buster Indian movies. I started following him in the internet. I read numerous articles about him and finally one day I got him in the Facebook. I first checked whether this was the real profile of the actor or not by checking with my cousins who are in his friends’ list and then approached him to be my friend in the Facebook. Did I stalk him? No, I just followed him. Next in my list was Jayne Hitchcock, President, WHOA . This wonderful lady, who was my main inspiration for opening up the CCVC, had been a “mysterious” figure for me until the day I found her out in the internet. I became a proud member of WHOA and I started following her write ups to know her personally. I never missed any links she gave in the internet and finally I could “see” her in the Facebook too. I came to know about her family, saw her wonderful mother, her lovely dogs, and even her favorite dishes too. I still “follow” her (readers please excuse me for my habit of “following” only *celebs*. But I can’t help it). Well, I do *follow* but don’t *stalk* and I don’t do any crime. But then if anyone follows any individual with a vengeance, it certainly doesn’t remain a pleasant experience for the “followed” individual and then the act turns into “stalking”.

More to come in the second part