Offences relating to cyber crimes where children have been targeted are increasingly assuming serious dimensions. A modern lifestyle carries a dis-advantage of reduced parental supervision and guidance to the minors. The presentation attempts to discuss all connected issues.

1. CHILDREN AS TARGETS
OF CYBER CRIMES
by
Maj Gen Nilendra Kumar
An effort for
Bachpan Bachao Andolan
and
Lex Consilium Foundation

2. QUOTE-
“What you did to me haunts me every
single day”
-Anonymous

3. MOBILE INTERNET USER BASE IN JUNE 2016
371 MILLION
An estimation of sheer volume, scope and number of
victims.

4. NUMBER OF MOBILE INTERNET USERS
IN INDIA
In millions
• December 2015 373
• Urban 226
• Rural 147

5. India is now ranked 3rd- after USA and
China- as a source of ‘malicious activity’
on the internet, and 2nd as a source of
‘malicious code’

6. Mobile internet users are those who
have accessed internet on the mobile
phone at any time. Among 373 million
users, a little less than half are young
who are less than 25 years of age.
About 134 million children have mobile
phones in India.

7. AREA OF MAJOR CONCERN
A study commissioned by Microsoft in 2012
ranked India third in high online bullying
figures (after China and Singapore) among 25
countries surveyed.

8. COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL
NETWORKING
Within these category, chatting (37%) and Email
(35%) are the top activities people engage in
urban areas.

9. PURPOSE OF ACCESSING MOBILE
IN INTERNET
‘Communication’ and ‘social networking’ continues
to be the top purpose of accessing mobile internet.
69% of the urban users use mobile internet for
online communication or to access social media.
Thus, the propensity to remain connected in real
time is increasing among the mobile internet users in
India.

10. SEXUAL ABUSE
Inappropriate sexual behavior with a child. It includes
fondling a child’s genitals, making the child fondle the
adult’s genitals, intercourse, incest, rape, sodomy,
exhibitionism and sexual exploitation.

11. RISKS THAT MINORS FACE ONLINE
1. Sexual solicitation
2. Exposure to problematic and illegal content
3. Harassment
4. Bullying

12. INTERNET INITIATED SEX CRIMES
Crimes in which sex offenders meet juvenile
victims online.

13. OFFENDERS
Most internet initiated sex crimes involve adult men
who use the internet to meet and seduce underage
adolescents into sexual encounters. The offenders
use internet communications such as instant
messages, e-mail and chat-rooms to meet and
develop intimate relationships with the victims.

14. ONLINE PREDATOR
•Internet user who exploits children and teens for
sexual and violent purposes.
•He is a person who obtains, or tries to obtain,
sexual contact with another person in a predatory
manner.

15. CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
The involvement of a child in sexual activity that he or
she does not fully comprehend, or is unable to give
informed consent to, or that violates the laws or social
taboos of society.

16. DIFFERENT FORMS OF APPROACHES
EMPLOYED FOR SEXUAL ABUSE AGAINST
CHILDREN ONLINE
1. By solicitation or enticing.
2. Providing access to sexually explicit contents to minors.
3. Exploitation of children for child pornography.

17. CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
• It is publishing and transmitting obscene material of
children in electronic form.
• It refers to images or films, and in some cases, writings
depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child.
• It is a form of child sexual abuse.
• Some believe that the words ‘child pornography’ should
be replaced by ‘child sex abuse images’.

18. TYPES OF BULLYING AGAINST CHILDREN
MAY TAKE THE FORM OF
1. Physical
2. Verbal
3. Non verbal or emotional
4. Cyber

19. COMMON OFFENCES
1. Cyber bullying
2. Cyber stalking
3. Sexting
4. Molestation
5. Trolling

20. CYBER BULLYING
When a child or a group of children
intentionally intimidate, offend, threaten, or
embarrass another child or a group of
children, specifically through the use of ICTs
such as websites or chat rooms, a cellular
telephone or other mobile devices.

21. CYBER BULLYING MAY RELATE TO
1. Abuse and/or
2. Harassment by teasing or insulting a victim’s
I. Body shape
II. Intellect
III. Family background
IV. Dress sense
V. Mother tongue
VI. Place of origin
VII. Attitude
VIII.Race
IX. Caste
X. Name calling

22. HARM BY CYBER BULLYING ON TARGETED
CHILD
1. Distress caused due to severity, frequency and
pervasiveness of bullying.
2. Anonymity
3. Immediacy Social media
4. Reach

23. CYBER STALKING
•Use of internet or other electronic means to stalk or
harass an individual or a group or an organization. It
may include false accusations, defamation,
monitoring, threats, identity theft, the solicitation of
minors for sex etc.
•Cyber stalking is a weapon used to damage the
reputation of the victim. It is mainly for revenge, hate
or retribution.
•Common mode of operation for cyber stalkers is to
utilize social media, public forums or online
information sites with the view to threaten a victim.
•All cyber stalking is a form of cyber bullying.

24. HABIT FORMATION AND ONLINE
ENTICEMENT
This may relate to illegal behaviours such as
access to alcohol, cheating, plagiarism,
gambling, drug trafficking, sexting and self
exposure.

25. SEXTING
Sending, receiving or forwarding sexually explicit
messages, photographs or images between
mobile phones.

26. TROLLING
•In the context of cyber crimes, it depicts a case where one
typically unleashes one or more cynical remarks on an
innocent bystander.
•It involves deceiving. It is an effort to convince the victim
that either you truly believe in what is being said , no matter
how outrageous it may be , or give him/her malicious
instructions, under the guise of help.

27. SEXUAL HARASSMENT
•It involves sending undesirable content to a
person and/or posting inappropriate content
about him/her in cyberspace.
•Such messages often refer to intimate details of
the victim’s personal life and body, insinuate or
offer sex-related activities, or impose sex-
related images or sounds.

28. SEXTORTION
•It is a form of sexual exploitation that employs non-
physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favours
from the victim.
•The term also refers to a form of blackmail in which
sexual information or images are used to extort sexual
favours from the victims.

29. ONLINE SEXUAL GROOMING
By way of online circulation of pornography for
further offline abuse, encompassing both child to
child, as well as adult to child grooming.

30. GROOMING
•Preparing a child, significant adults and the
environment for sexual abuse and exploitation or
ideological manipulation.
•This is the launching pad for internet initiated sex
crimes.

31. REVENGE PORN
Sharing of private sexual materials, either photos or
videos, of another person without their consent and
with the purpose of causing embarrassment or distress.
The images are sometimes accompanied by personal
information about the subject, including their full
name, address and links to their media profiles.

32. COMMERCIAL SEXUAL
EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN
All forms of sexual exploitation of a child
including visual depiction of a child engaged in
explicit sexual conduct, real or stimulated, or
the lewd exhibition of genitals intended for
sexual gratification of the user, done with a
commercial purpose, whether for money or in
kind.

33. IT HAS BEEN OBSERVED
•Online molesters use the internet to lure children into
sexual assaults.
•Naïve and inexperienced young children are the ones
who are vulnerable to online child molesters.
•Many sex crimes against minors, perhaps the majority,
are never reported to any law enforcement agencies.

34. •Internet initiated sex crimes, that are romances
from the perspective of young victims, typically
take place in isolation and secrecy, outside of
oversight by peers, family members and others in
the youth’s face to face social networks.
•The offenders use information which has been
publicly divulged in online profiles and social
networking sites to identify potential targets.

35. When deception does occur, it often involves
promises of love and romance by offenders
whose intentions are primarily sexual. Often
victims are too young to consent to sexual
intercourse with adults.

36. •Adult have been caught in sexually compulsive
online behavior that may include potential or
actual illegal conduct with young people.
•Some victims are pressured to engage in sex
and some are coerced.
•There are those who question whether
underage adolescents voluntarily engaging in
sex should be considered victims?

37. CYBER FACT FILE
• India became the third largest internet user in 2012.
• India is expected to have 519 million internet users by 2018.
• India features in the list of top 20 countries with maximum
percentage of cyber crime.
• Online pornography related cases showed a 100% increase from
2012-2013.
• 56.7% of the total cyber criminals were found to be in the age
group of 18-30 years.

38. BEWARE !
•Pedophiles are finding new opportunities to network with
each other on how to exploit children.
•Friendly websites like Myspace or Facebook are often
used by sexual predators as victim directories.
•Young girls who innocently post very personal
information, or their identities, on these sites set
themselves up for an inevitable disaster.

39. CHILD SEXUAL TOURISM
•The term refers to tourism for the purpose of
engaging in prostitution of children, which is
commercially facilitated child sexual abuse.
•Pedophiles use the internet to plan their trips by
seeking out and trading information regarding
opportunities for child sex tourism.

40. CYBER EXTREMISM
Ideological indoctrination
and recruitment, threats of
extreme violence.

41. Indian Penal Code
Section 292
General prohibition on possession of obscene
material.

42. SECTION 293
•REGARDING DISTRIBUTION OF OBSCENE MATERIAL TO
MINORS. IT PUNISHES SALE, LETTING ON HIRE,
DISTRIBUTION, EXHIBITION OR CIRCULATION OF
OBSCENE MATERIAL TO ANY PERSON UNDER THE AGE
OF 20 YEARS.
•PUNISHMENT - IMPRISONMENT UP TO THREE YEARS
AND A FINE. ON SUBSEQUENT CONVICTION,
IMPRISONMENT MAY BE UP TO SEVEN YEARS AND A
FINE.

43. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
AMENDMENT ACT, 2008
•Social Networking comes under the definition of
‘intermediary’ under the IT Act.
•Intermediary means someone who acts as an agent
between persons.

44. • Section 67B - Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material
depicting children in sexually explicit acts etc., in electronic form.
• Whoever
a) Publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted
material in any electronic form which depicts children engaged in
sexually explicit act or conduct, or
b) Creates text or digital images, collects, seeks, browses,
downloads, advertises, promotes, exchanges, or distributes
material in any electronic form depicting children in obscene or
indecent or sexually explicit manners, or
c) Cultivates, entices or induces children into online relationships
with one or more children for and on sexually explicit manner
that may offend a reasonable adult on the computer resource, or
d) Facilitates abusing children online
e) Records in any electronic form own abuse or that of others
pertaining to sexually explicit act with children.

45. VISUAL DEPICTION
Includes photographs, videos, digital or
computer generated images indistinguishable
from an actual minor and images created,
adapted, or modified, but appear to depict an
identifiable, actual minor.

46. Computer network has been amended to include
‘communication device; which means cell phones,
personal digital assistance or combination of both
or any other device used to communicate, send or
transmit any text, video, audio or image.

47. •Data is yet to be collated to link high teen pregnancy
rates to youths who have had sex with older partners.
•Undeveloped film, undeveloped videotape and
electronically stored data that can be converted into
visual image of child pornography are also deemed as
illegal visual depictions.

48. COMMENTS
1. The term ‘sexually explicit’ has not been defined.
2. What would constitute ‘abuse’ under clause (d) has
not been indicated.
3. The status of online child is not clear.
4. It is not clear whether law would treat children below
16 as victims in need of care and protection.

49. MAIN CHALLENGES
1. Lack of digital literacy
2. Lack of online safety measures
3. A distinct legal regime against child
pornography is yet to be set up

50. NATURE OF ONLINE CONTRACTS
Most of the e-contracts use a standard format. In
these e-contracts, one party has all the
bargaining power and uses it to draft the
contract primarily to its advantage. The other
party is placed in a take it or leave it position.

51. AGE OF USERS
•Normally the minimum age to register as a user is 13.
Anyone who wants to enter a social networking site has
to accept the terms and conditions in a standard term
of contract called ‘click next contract’.
•In reality, 62% of affluent kids below 12 have these
accounts.

52. COMMENTS
1. There is a need to strengthen the law in India relating
to online child sexual abuse.
2. A multi-layered approach is required:
• Promotion of child safety measures.
• Prevention of the offence.
• Protection of the child.
• Civil society to be developed to be pro-active for the needs of
children.
National Advisory on Preventing and Combating
Cyber Crime Against Children, 2012.

53. OTHER LEGAL REGIMES

54. In EU, child pornography accounts for over half
of all offences committed online.

55. UNITED KINGDOM AND WALES
•SEXUAL OFFENCES ACT, 2003
•It makes it an offence to arrange a meeting with a
child, for oneself or someone else, with the intent of
sexually abusing the child.

56. A 2009 UK Survey of 2094 teens aged 11 to 18
found that 38% had received an offensive or
distressing sexual image by text or email.

57. SEXUAL OFFENCES (SCOTLAND) ACT, 2005
Befriending a child on the internet or
otherwise, and meeting or intending to
meet a child with the intention to abuse
him/her, amounts to an offence.

58. BROADBAND DATA IMPROVEMENT ACT, 2008
Ordains schools and libraries in receipt of E-rate funding
to frame an Internet Safety Policy which must indicate
educating minors about appropriate online behavior
including interacting with other individuals on social
networking sites and in chat rooms and generate cyber
bullying awareness and response.

59. CATEGORIES OF BEHAVIOR THAT CAN
TRIGGER “RISK OF SEXUAL HARM ORDER”
(RSHO)
1. Engaging in sexual activity involving or in the
presence of a child.
2. Causing a child to watch a person engaging in
sexual activity – including still or moving images.
3. Giving a child anything that relates to sexual
activity.
4. Communicating with a child where any part of the
communication is sexual.

60. The Sexual Offences Prevention
Order (SOPO) is a preventive
order placed on a person who
has been convicted of crimes
with a sexual/violent element.

61. UNITED STATES
•The Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act,
1998.
•It makes it a crime to knowingly make a communicator
for commercial purposes harmful to minors or to use
the internet for purposes of engaging in sexual
activities with minors or transmit information about a
person below the age of 18 years for the purpose of
enticing, offering, encouraging or soliciting any person.

62. The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000
(CIPA) regulates computer access to adult
oriented websites in public schools and
libraries by installing filtering technology that
prevents adults and minors from accessing
material deemed harmful.

63. •A history of inappropriate behavior on the part
of an adult may lead to imposition of
preventive orders by the authorities.
•In the US, anyone who is involved in the
electronic distribution of sexual photos of
minors can face state and federal charges of
child pornography.

64. 2008 ICMEC STUDY
•International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children
•Child Pornography and Model Legislations
•Analyzed 187 Interpol countries and concluded
• 29 have legislations sufficient to combat child pornography
offences.
• 93 countries have no legislation at all that specifically address
child pornography.

65. TERMINOLOGY GUIDELINES
Adopted on 28 January 2016 by Inter-
agency Working Group at Luxembourg

66. FIVE CRITERIA TEST
Whether national legislation-
1. Exists with regard to child pornography.
2. Provides a definition of child pornography.
3. Criminalizes computer facilitated offences.
4. Criminalizes possession of child pornography
regardless of intent to distribute and,
5. Requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to
report suspected child pornography to law
enforcement or some other mandated agencies.

67. India satisfied three out of the five criteria
listed in the five criteria test. The two not
satisfied are-
•No national legislation defines child pornography.
•Absence of national legislations that mandates ISP
reporting.

68. JURISDICTION
Social networking sites often get away from their
liability by saying that they are bound by the US laws
and are not amenable to Indian laws.

69. CHALLENGES
1. Parents and teachers do not have direct experience
with the risks exposed by new media technologies.
2. No statistics available regarding online child sexual
abuse.
3. Lack of cyber due diligence. Service providers are
expected to carry out due diligence of the contents
lest it poses a threat to the security and integrity of
the country.