Strengthen capabilities to check social media misuse: Rajnath

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday sought strengthening the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to check misuse of social media for illegal activities, an official statement said.

Chairing a review meeting in the ministry, he cautioned against the challenges being posed by crimes in cyberspace and called for effective measures to improve cyber security.

Rajnath Singh called for greater vigilance against evolving cyber threats and called for regular cyber auditing of IT infrastructure of all organisations under the Home Ministry.

Expressing concern over rising misuse of internet for child pornography and other obscene material, he directed the ministry officials to expedite the launch of an online cybercrime reporting portal.

According to the statement, the portal will enable affected people in states and union territories to lodge complaints which will be investigated by the respective law enforcement agencies and action taken for removal of such content.

The Home Minister appreciated the efforts made in expediting security clearance for proposals in sensitive sectors and noted with satisfaction that the average duration for the clearance of a proposal has come down to 53 days compared to 120 days four years ago.

He also directed further reducing the clearance time by making use of online systems in coordination with administrative Ministries for processing the proposals to "further improve efficiency and monitoring".

Rajnath Singh also directed upgradation and updation of National Information Security Policy and Guidelines for the government sector and also expressed concern over financial frauds being committed on gullible public by phone call fraudsters and stressed on increasing public awareness and strengthening of institutional framework for checking such frauds.

The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba and senior officials of the Ministry.

--IANS

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