Need for police officials to learn evolving technologies to deal with increasing cybercrime: NCW

There is a need for police officials to learn the evolving technologies to deal with increasing cases of cybercrime against women, NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma said on Wednesday.

Noting that there is a need to ensure safety of women in real world as well as the virtual world of social media, Sharma said the commission is working towards making women aware of what precautions have to be taken to make them secure.

She was speaking at a one-day session on 'Cyber Security and Cyber Investigation' with the police officials.

Meenakshi Gupta, a member at the National Commission for Women (NCW), said there has been an increase in the number of cases of Facebook stalking and credit card fraud.

"It is high time that we put out heads together and work out a strategy towards dealing with the increase in cybercrime incidents, especially targeting women," Gupta said.

"Awareness generation and gender sensitisation are two key functions of the commission with the support of the police officials. Cybercrime is a burning issue and women tend to be more vulnerable to these," she said.

Speakers at the workshop spoke on topics related to need for sensitisation of law enforcement agencies, cybercrime against women and related laws and role of government to curb cybercrime with initiatives undertaken by the government, among others.

Vineet Kumar, a member of the Cyber Peace Foundation (CPF), said traditional crime is getting disintegrated now and every crime has a digital component attached to it.

"There are many online platforms where human trafficking is taking place and even child sexual abuse is prevalent on these platforms that exist, especially on dark web. Dark web is the new 'chor bazaar' and that is where it is covert," Kumar said.

Janice Verghese, also a member of the CPF, spoke on laws related to cybercrime against women and pointed out areas of online threats that included online extortion, moral policing and harassment.

The workshop was organised for senior police officials from 23 states dealing with cybercrime amid an increase in such cases targeted at women.