Act on doorstep to check child porn

Any sort of child pornography in electronic form whether creating, publishing, transmitting or even browsing can land the ‘user’ in jail for a period of five years with a fine of Rs.10 lakh, the amended Information Technology Act states.

The new IT Bill, which is awaiting President’s nod to become an Act, makes it illegal to creating, exchanging, downloading or browsing any electronic depiction of children in obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner. Also to cultivate, entice or induce children to online relationship with other children for a sexual act falls into offence carrying five years imprisonment and Rs.10 lakh fine.

Section 67 of the existing Act deals with "publishing obscene information in electronic form", but nowhere defines "pornography", "child pornography", or makes it an offence.

But in its amended form Section 67B specifically proposes severe punishment under cyber crime involving sexually explicit online or electronic content that depicts children. The Act proposes to bring "cyber terrorism", "identity theft" and "violation of privacy" into the domain of cyber crime.