Digital epidemic: State can't abdicate its duty to deal with cybercrime

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his radio address to the nation this Sunday, talked about the increasing risk of cyber fraud. This follows multiple occasions in which scamsters targeted individuals and threatened them with “digital arrest”, pretending that they were from various authorities, such as the police, the securities market regulator, or the narcotics squad. The targeted individuals are then induced to clear out their bank accounts and in some cases transfer them into cryptocurrency wallets. Even those who are relatively digitally literate have been victimised by these fraudsters. It is welcome, therefore, that the Prime Minister chose to raise awareness about these methods. But more needs to be done to deal with these threats. Individual authorities, such as the banking regulator, may not have the capacity to track down the perpetrators of such crimes. Many of them are beyond India’s borders, with countries in Southeast Asia being particular hot spots. What is necessary is to create capacity within national cybercrime cells so that each complaint can be followed up on. The fundamental responsibility for preventing such crimes and for bringing the criminals to justice rests with the state, and it cannot abdicate that function.

 

In general, it has been too easy for some authorities to shrug off responsibility for digital threats of various kinds. Another example of this is visible in the epidemic of hoax bomb threats that has hit India’s civil aviation sector during the busy season prior to Diwali. More than 100 such threats have been issued against various flights in just a few days. This has overwhelmed airport security and caused chaos at multiple airports. An Air India flight to Chicago had to make an unscheduled landing in the Arctic in order to undergo checks. And another flight to Singapore had to be escorted to Changi Airport by the island nation’s F-16 fighters. A teenager was arrested last week and it has been reported that the police in Maharashtra are looking for another suspect, a 35-year-old man. But the initial approach of the authorities was to blame the social media sites on which the hoaxes were appearing and demand they remove posts harmful to national security. If these sites were failing to co-operate with investigations, and not providing IP addresses behind posts when requested by the police, it is one thing. But to expect them to do the work of the police and identify what a serious threat is and what is not is quite another matter.

 

For many authorities — whether financial regulators or those in charge of civil aviation, and even in some cases the local police — digital crime is a new frontier. It is natural that they may not have the expertise or the experience required. But such capacity then must be created, perhaps at the federal level, in order to be shared with the authorities that require it. If cyber scammers and digital hoaxers have greater capabilities than earlier, then the authorities must increase capacity to match. As for the fears of “digital arrest” that the Prime Minister specifically mentioned, the Indian state should also ask itself why such threats are so easily believed. Why has fear of the police and of draconian laws become so widespread that scammers can easily take advantage of it to terrorise innocent people? Investigators should focus on finding those that are committing crimes, and work to dispel the notion that they are capable of persecuting those who do not.