Government may pass Digital India Act to end online criminal activity: Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar

The government is working on a Digital India Act to incorporate new rules to stop the internet-assisted circulation of illegal, criminal and child pornography material, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar said on Friday.

Addressing a conference on ‘Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM)’, organized by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) at Vigyan Bhawan here, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, said it would make Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other intermediaries more liable for hosting offensive content.

He said the current information technology law does not meet the challenges of today’s times. “Therefore, the government has formed the IT rules of 2021 and amended them in 2022 to make intermediaries liable, and it is also proposing to pass a digital technology law,” Chandrashekhar said.

The minister said the government is committed to encouraging people’s use of the internet as a tool for empowerment, but also wants it to be safe and reliable. It is mandatory on the part of intermediaries who are the service providers to remove illegal and criminal content, he said.

The government is working on a Digital India Act incorporating new rules to stop the internet-assisted circulation of illegal, criminal and child pornography material, and also cover online gambling, Chandrashekhar said.

He said the weight of the free speech and privacy lobby cannot be a crime cow. “Even if a person is anonymous, intermediaries must disclose the author of such content. The internet has transformed from a tool for empowering people into an ecosystem that thrives on crime and illegality, which is an all time high now,” Chandrashekhar said.

However, he also said that CSAM is a consequence of something happening outside the internet, which needs to be dealt with under separate provisions of the law.