- The NCW has called for a review of the cyber laws to improve the safety of women online
- It was founded to defend digital rights, assert privacy, and ensure accountability
- It also aims to secure complainants' identities when reporting a cybercrime
The National Commission for Women suggested a thorough examination of cyber laws that relate to women to enhance digital rights, enhance protection of privacy, and make online arenas accountable.
The NCW report advocates for the inclusion of offenses like cyber bullying, trolling, deep fakes, and breach of privacy into the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in 2023, and has counseled it should prevent the identity of complainants to be revealed in prosecutions involving cybercrime.
The NCW report recommends there should be an offence for digital manipulation and online grooming to protect children, and it recommends penalties for this offence is enhanced under the 2012 POCSO Act.
These recommendations are part of over 200 actionable recommendations all made in the report on legal and institutional gaps in addressing cyber offences in India.
The NCW Report aims for a prosperous digital ecosystem, which will, therefore, serve to protect dignity, promote awareness, and encourage women to engage confidently in online spaces, NCW Chair Person, Vijaya Rahatkar stated.
The recommendations stem from a year of consultations with a range of stakeholders [agencies and ministries] and were sent to the ministries of law and justice, electronics and information technology, women and child development, and home affairs.
The recommendations in the report suggest changes to various laws that already offer protections to women and children in a digital space.
The NCW recommends that alongside the Information Technology Act 2002, mandatory provisions should include: increased penalties for offenses against women and children; threatening to share private or obscene material; a victim compensation fund to support women and children.
Additionally, the report states that the IT Rules 2021 should include mandatory verification of accounts, addressing AI manipulated content, provisions for gender-based harassment, and further addressing cross-national data laws.
The proposed Digital Data Personal Protection Act, 2023 has recommendations regarding identifying sensitive personal data and expanding the definition of harm as it engages gender, more restrictive measures of consent, mandatory removal of non-consensual material, after a period, of about 12 hours and harsher penalties for misconduct when the data is gender related.
The POSH Act 2013 also needs to be expanded to include protections for digital harassment and remote work environments. Lastly, the Indecent Representation of Women Act 1986 should also be amended.
.jpg "Nisha Anil Jain: Engineer-Turned-Educationist Shaping Future Leaders through Holistic Education")
