MILLENNIAL TEENS STAKE ON CYBER CRIMES by Srija Purimetla

Posted on: March 9, 2021 Posted by: admin Comments: 0

Author: Srija Purimetla, Student at IFIM law school.

Over the past few decades, the technology boom and advancements made man rely on the internet of which youth makes the major portion. In this technological era, social networking is major part of millennial teen’s digital life. Teenagers and youth use social media to stay connected with their fellow mates and help them keep informed of all the things that are happening around the world. So far, we can say internet is used for boon and also as a bane; one of the major hurdles is cyberbullying. It’s no wonder that youngsters involved in crime increase every day. Children of age 10 also use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat even if it is not meant for them. We can’t deny the fact that millennials are tech savvy and this makes them more exposed to cyber-crimes. Though the cyber education is given, Youth should be knowledgeable enough with important things including online self-control, safety and consequences of cyber-crime. On the flip side, there is no fixed type of cyber-crimes as there are different strategies and they continue to innovate different ways which makes it hard to tackle sometimes.

WHAT IS CYBER-CRIME?

Cyber-crime also known as Computer crime can be defined as the criminal activity using any networking devices or the computer. Some of the cyber-crime activities involve internet fraud, Theft of financial related like card payment data, Invasion of privacy, online harassment, Phishing, Malware, cheating, cyber stalking, assault by threat, cyber extortion, stealing of identity, producing or processing child pornography and illegal gambling. Cybercrime generally happens on platforms like social media, gaming platform and this criminal activity targets on devices to either delete or steal the data.

RECENT STATISTICAL REPORT ON INCREASE OF CYBERCRIMES IN INDIA

According to NRCB’s (National Crime Records Bureau) data in 2019, Around 44,546 cases of cybercrimes have been registered while it was 28,248 in 2018. Our country sees around 63.5 percent of increase in the cybercrime cases.

As per the records, Karnataka has the highest number of cybercrime cases in the year 2019 with 12,020 and followed by Uttar Pradesh with 11,416 cybercrime cases.

REASONS FOR CYBER-CRIME AMONG YOUTH

Most of the cyber-crimes are committed by the youth and teenagers who are unaware of the cyber related laws and consequences of doing such unethical hacking.
Sharing the personal information negligently with friends, family or other users and not updating the passwords time to time can often be the problem.
Downloading movies, games on various torrents not knowing the consequences. Using public Wi-Fi to make online payments without adequate precaution such ignorance might make the data transfer and confidential credentials more vulnerable to hackers.
Unlimited access to internet and easy access system makes it easy for the skilled hackers to get unauthorized access by changing the codes.
Unemployment among Youth made it easiest source as it makes quick money and easy to destroy the data related to the crime.

LAWS RELATED TO CYBER CRIME

To regulate such cases Indian Government has the Information Technology and Department of Telecommunication promoting parent and child safety where the computer is used for the unlawful acts. In order to deal with such cases there are three Boards heads that have been registered

The IT Act
Indian Penal Code
State level legislation

Currently ministry of home affairs has advised to set up adequate technical capacity and infrastructure to handle such crimes.

PROVISIONS UNDER INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY ACT:

Publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form under section 67 of the IT Act;
Publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form under section 67A of the IT Act;
Publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form under section 67B of the IT Act; and
Cyber Terrorism under Section 66F of the IT Act.

PROVISIONS UNDER INDIAN PENAL CODE:

Sec 345C of IPC: Publication or capturing a picture of private parts or acts of woman without such person’s consent.
Sec 465 of IPC: The punishment for forgery
Sec 468 of IPC: Offences of email spoofing or the online forgery are committed for the purpose of committing other serious offences like cheating.
Sec 469 of IPC: Forgery committed by anyone solely for the purpose of disrupting a particular person
Sec 500 of IPC: Sending any kind of defamatory or abusive messages through email
Sec 504 of IPC: Threaten, Insult or tries to provoke any person with the intention to effect peace through email or any other electronic form.
Sec 509 of IPC: Offense of uttering a word, showing a gesture and committing an act that has the potential to harm the modesty of a woman committed physically or through electronic modes.

In the case of Anil Kumar srivastava v. Addl Director, MHFW, the petitioner electronically forged signature of AD and later filed a case making false allegations about the same person. The court held that, the petitioner was liable under Section 465 as well as Section 471 of IPC as the petitioner also tried to use it as a genuine document.

In the case Kalandi charan lenka v. The state of Odisha, the victim receives an obscene message from unknown number which are damaging her character wherein, the emails are sent and fake Facebook account has been created by the accused which contained morphed pictures of victim. In this case the accused was found prima facie guilty of cyber stalking by the high court under section 354D of IPC and various provisions of IT Act.

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF COMMITTING CYBER CRIME

The convict might be given a warning, fine or imprisonment.
The Convict might be restricted from the internet access.
Such conviction might show the negative effect on education and career.

SUGGESTED PRECAUTIONS

Do not download any applications from various torrents to secure the device. Users should be careful by not sharing any personal information on social media. Creating strong and unique passwords can make it challenging and difficult for the hackers to get access to the account and information. Users should be more cautious while using the public Wi-Fi by trying not to access any social media accounts, online payments as there are chances of exposing the personal information. One must be more conscientious while managing the private settings of any social media accounts. Teenagers must be educated regarding the cyber-crimes and should be addressed about the consequences of committing them along with their academics. It should be vulnerable for the information and knowledge should be given in a proper way to the social media users by cyber cells, ethical hackers and educational sectors. Government should collaborate with ethical hackers and come up with solutions. They should also make some sensitization and awareness campaigns related to cybercrimes.

CONCLUSION

Lack of awareness is the primary reason for the cyber-crimes among the youth. Almost half of internet and social media users are still the victims of the virus in the personal computers and devices. The main reason behind such vulnerability is lack of proper caution. The users should try to avoid downloading the movies and games from various torrents and be more cautious while opening any links or attachments. Avoid sending any photographs online as there are many instances where the photographs have been misused. Try using the latest and updated anti-virus software’s to avoid any virus attacks. Lastly users should not be sharing any personal information with their fellow mates, friends or family to that point as there are high chances of hacking via email. If there any victims to such cyber bullies or attacks they should inform the proper authorities or the local police, be it small or a major issue. So, be aware and be careful.

REFERENCES

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3