Portal for complaints on sexual abuse videos developed:SC told

The Centre has informed the Supreme Court that an online cyber crime reporting portal has been developed and certain features like anonymous reporting of child pornography, rape and gangrape content is being offered from today.
The government also told the apex court that facility like online registration of cyber complaints, which would be forwarded to the concerned police authorities for appropriate action, would also be made available.
It said that the portal, with the access name - www.cyberpolice.gov.in, was "undergoing security audit and has been deployed in staging environment for testing and trial".
It told a bench comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and U U Lalit that this portal was expected to be fully operational soon.

"It is also stated that certain other features are likely to be made operational by February 10, 2018 with regard to providing status update of complaints to registered complainants, portal access to other stakeholders willing to register for providing inputs on child pornography/rape/gang rape content and maintaining hash tag of obscene content," the bench noted in its order.
The court was also informed that Ministry of Home Affairs has identified keywords for child pornography, rape and gang rape content search and a list of keywords in English language has been compiled and circulated to content providers for further action.

"Efforts are being made to update the list on regular basis. It is orally submitted before us that the keywords in other languages will also be taken up for consideration in due course of time," the bench noted.

It posted the matter for hearing on February 15 so that it could be made aware of the progress made by the Centre in this regard. The bench has been holding in-camera hearing on this matter.
The apex court had earlier directed the Centre to have a web portal ready by today to enable citizens lodge complaints on child sexual abuse, child pornography and gangrape videos.
The court was hearing the matter following a letter sent in 2015 to then Chief Justice of India H L Dattu by Hyderabad-based NGO Prajwala, along with two rape videos in a pen-drive. The court had on its own taken cognisance of the letter and asked the CBI to launch a probe to apprehend the culprits.

Earlier, cyber security officials who function under the CBI, had told the bench that internet was a "wild highway" and blocking objectionable content at the source was a technical challenge for which clear guidelines needed to be issued to stop circulation of such material.
The NGO's letter had also mooted the idea of maintaining a national sex offenders' register which should contain details of persons convicted for offences like eve-teasing, stalking, molestation and other sexual assaults.