Amit Shah inaugrates Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre (I4C) to tackle cyber crimes

Indians can now report cyber crimes online. On January 10, 2020, Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the state-of-the-art Indian Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centre (I4C) and also the dedicated National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal to the nation, a citizen-centric initiative that will enable citizens to report cyber crimes online.

According to Home Ministry statement, the portal will let all cyber crime related complaints be accessed by the law enforcement agencies in the States and Union Territories to take action as per the law. At the initiative of the Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA), 15 States and Union Territories (UTs) have consented to set up regional Cyber Crime Co-ordination Centres at their respective regions.

The scheme to set up I4C was approved in October 2018 at an estimated cost of Rs. 415.86 crore to deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and co-ordinated manner. It has seven components viz., National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit, National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, National Cyber Crime Training Centre, Cyber Crime Ecosystem Management Unit, National Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre, National Cyber Crime Forensic Laboratory Ecosystem and Platform for Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Team.

So far, more than 700 police districts and more than 3,900 police stations have been connected with this Portal. After successful completion, this portal can improve the capacity of the law enforcement agencies to investigate the cases and will improve success in prosecution. This portal also focuses on specific crimes like financial crime and social media related crimes like stalking, cyber bullying, etc.

Moreover, according to the MHA press release, this portal will improve co-ordination amongst the law enforcement agencies of different States, districts and police stations for dealing with cyber crimes in a co-ordinated and effective manner.

This portal was launched on pilot basis on 30th August, 2019 and it enables filing of all cyber crimes with specific focus on crimes against women, children, particularly child pornography, child sex abuse material, online content pertaining to rapes/gang rapes, etc.

In future, this portal will provide for chatbot for automated interactive assistance system to the public for guidance on cybercrime prevention and how to report incidents on the portal.