Govt sets up new cyber-control hub to check pornography, online trolls

Keeping child pornography and online trolling in check will be high on the agenda of a cyber-control hub being set up by the Home Ministry. The Rs 400-crore state-of-the-art centre, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (IC4), is being set up to tackle all cyber crime including child pornography and online abuse.

"The work on IC4 has been going on. Once it is ready, it will deal with cyber crimes like child pornography and online trolling with priority," a Home Ministry official said.

Key objectives of IC4 are: to act as a nodal point in the fight against cyber crime and as an early warning system for law enforcement agencies with active cyber crime monitoring.

It will also set up an open platform for victims to lodge cyber crime complaints, besides support and coordinate electronic investigation of cyber crime and assist the law enforcement agencies in criminal investigation.

There has been almost 40 per cent annual increase in cyber crimes registered in the country during the past two-three years, according to an official estimate. The Supreme Court too had pulled up the government for not doing much to check child pornography.

The government has already taken a serious note of the issue of child pornography and in recent months asked Internet Service Providers to block over 800 sites which had such content.1