Immediate Interim Measures announced by the Government to curb the menace of online Child Sexual Abuse Material

PIB, KalimNews, New Delhi, 12-May-2017. The Ministry of Women and Child Development has been making several efforts to deal with the problem of online Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). In a major step, a stakeholder Consultation was held last year on this issue wherein it was decided that the Ministry will establish a National Alliance against Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, focusing primarily on the online content. Subsequent to this decision, an Inter-Ministerial Committee(IMC) was constituted on request of the WCD Ministry. The IMC includes MHA, MEITY, Ministry of Law, Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Telecom.

Based on the consultations of the Inter-Ministerial Committee, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(MEITY) in collaboration with Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued immediate interim measures to curb the menace of Online Child Sexual Abuse Material. MEITY has issued this Order under Section 79(2) (c) of the Information Technology Act 2000 to curb online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Under this order, the Internet Service Providers(ISPs) shall be required to adopt and implement the Internet Watch Foundation(IWF) Resources by 31st July 2017. This foundation maintains a dynamic global list of websites and URLs which contain CSAM. Implementation of IWF Resources will result in the relevant content being blocked/removed on an ongoing basis.

This is an interim measure till the IMC puts in place a centralized mechanism to monitor online CSAM. The Order of MEITY also reiterates that the ISPs will continue to observe due diligence requirements described under the IT Act for removing and disabling any content which is in violation of the extant rules and regulations.