Centre launches portal to report online child sexual abuse content

The portal has been launched under the National Mission for the safety of women, using the Nirbhaya funds.

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The Centre has launched a website which allows you to report online sexual abuse, including child sexual abuse material, in a convenient manner, and anonymously, if you so wish. The online portal can be accessed at https://cybercrime.gov.in and is meant to enable victims or complainants to report cybercrime complaints online.

“This portal is an initiative of Government of India under National Mission for the safety of women by utilising Nirbhaya funds,” reads the description on the website. “At present this portal caters to complaints pertaining to online Child Pornography (CP)-Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit content such as Rape/Gang Rape (CP/RGR) content,” it adds.

While there is an option of reporting such incidents and material anonymously, there is also a ‘report and track option’ where you will have to provide your name, phone number, email address, details of the complaint and so on. The plus side of this, as the name suggests, is that you will be able to track the progress of your complaint. If you are going to make a complaint anonymously, the only mandatory fields in the form are the type of crime and the state.

Once the complaint is made, the concerned state police authorities will take appropriate action. If a complainant attempts to give false information, they can be penalised as per the law.

Apart from this, the website also contains some tips for online safety which you can access here.

The Cybercrime Reporting Portal has been released around the same time as the Indian government launched its first sexual offenders’ registry. Unlike similar registries in several foreign countries like the US and Australia, the Indian counterpart is not public and will only be accessible to designated police officials.