The idea is to prevent easy access of porn by adults in charge of children

The Centre has suggested the installation of Internet jammers in school buses to prevent easy access of porn material by adults in charge of children travelling in these vehicles.

The government was responding to a petition filed by the Supreme Court Women Lawyers Association seeking a direction to all schools to install jammers in buses carrying children. The petition said this step would prevent bus staff or anyone in charge of the children from accessing pornographic sites on their cell phones or other devices.

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development, however, said it was not feasible to install jammers inside school premises since this would lead to blockage of internet access to computers used by children.

“Not only is porn content accessible on the computers with modern technology, internet connections are available on mobile also, even minors now have mobiles with them they have easy access to porn and sexually explicit content on the mobile phone. This in turn is increasing sexual crimes and victimisation among minors,” the petition said.

The petition said that porn content was “publicly shared without compunction” as there was neither stringent law nor a fool-proof method to restrict such behaviour.

It said that even children wereexposed to this material, “critically affecting their emotional and psychological well-being”. The petition also said that the Information Technology Act, 2000, is primarily a legislation to promote e-commerce and is not “very effective in dealing with several emerging crimes like cyber, defamation, stalking and so on. These crimes are associated crimes of pornography”.