Need preventive law to tackle rising cyber crimes: SC judge

The alarming rise in cyber crimes has warranted a preventive legislation to tackle the menace which in recent times also affected many of the government departments with the hacking of their websites, Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur today said.
"We need to think about a legislation to prevent cyber crimes. Between 2014-15 there has been a 20.5 per cent rise in cyber crimes and we don't see the number coming down any(time) soon.
"Cyber security is crucial. Government websites also get hacked and misused due to which public is often misled with wrong information. There is a need for preventive measures," Justice Lokur said while giving a valedictory address at the two-day International Conference on Cyberlaw, Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity which concluded today.

The valedictory session was also attended by Delhi High Court judge Sanjeev Sachdeva who expressed concern over cyber crimes affecting children.
"Cyber-bullying through smartphones is severely affecting children and in some cases even driving them to commit suicide. The virtual reality games on phones are taking them away from real world and into the digital world," he said.
Stressing on the need to be a step ahead of an offender, Justice Lokur said a legislative policy needs to be in place.

"Given the endemic delays in the justice delivery system, we need to come up with a preventive legislation to handle the offenders. We need to be one step ahead of the offenders. A legislative policy is important," he said.

Quoting data from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Justice Lokur said in 2015, cyber crimes were committed mostly by young offenders particularly under 30 years of age and it is very important to impart education to people about this platform of crime.
"As per NCRB, 60 per cent crime was committed by persons under the age of 30 in 2015. A campaign to educate people about internet offences is needed.
"With the social media, lot of private information is getting transmitted. What is of concern is commercial data and there is a need to preserve it. Unless there is a method to preserve it, any person can hack it and misuse it," he said.

This was the third conference organised by advocate Pavan Duggal which saw participation of more than 100 speakers from various countries with expertise in cyber security.