Exclusive | Mumbai: Who will watch the watchmen?

Akancha Srivastava, founder of Akancha Against Harassment

A serious complaint dealing with non-consensual intimate images of victims is lying unattended to in the Mumbai Police's inbox for seven months now. Ironically, the complainant is an anti-online harassment activist who trains the Mumbai Police in matters of cyber law enforcement.

Akancha Srivastava, founder of Akancha Against Harassment, has been working since 2017 to fight cybercrimes like deepfakes and cyber-stalking through her social impact initiative. She also collaborates with serving and retired police officers for the cause, and holds training sessions for police and other agencies all over the country.

In August last year, Srivastava told mid-day, she saw certain social media influencers tweet through their official accounts, claiming that they could help people get their non-consensually leaked compromising pictures from the internet.

"The influencers were asking people to send their leaked images to them for this purpose, which immediately set alarm bells ringing in my head. The claim was similar to one made by Meta earlier, where the tech giant had said users could get in touch if their nudes were leaked on its platforms, and that they would be removed. While Meta was in a position to offer to do this - and even they didn't ask for the images to be sent - these influencers, and the website they were promoting, weren't. They had no power or authority to do so," Srivastava told mid-day.

The website in question, Stop Non-Consensual Intimate Images Abuse (StopNCII), claims to be an alliance of several organisation across the country. The influencers were asking people to send their leaked nudes, after which StopNCII would supposedly get the images taken off the internet.

"First of all, no one needs to acquire your nudes to take them off the internet. Secondly, the claim itself is contentious. No one can say that they can remove content from any internet-based platform, unless they are affiliated with the platform themselves, or are part of law enforcement. None of these requisites apply to StopNCII," said Srivastava.

As soon as she saw the tweets, she immediately informed several police official connected to cyber law enforcement in Mumbai and Maharashtra via text message. She also tweeted to the influencers, who deleted their tweets. Meanwhile, on September 13 last year, she submitted an official letter to the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mumbai Cyber, detailing the issue and seeking
immediate action.

"My main fear is that people would have already sent in their nudes to these influencers, and these may be misused. Besides, StopNCII, at the very least, needs to substantiate their claims as to how they plan to get any images removed from the net. We are not even getting into the dark web part here, where this is completely impossible," Srivastava said.

With these concerns in mind, she has repeatedly followed up with the police, not just in the form of emails but also in person. "I bring up the issue at the training sessions I hold for them, which itself is ironical. On one hand, I'm working with them to ensure a safer internet and on the other hand, my own complaint has not moved forward one inch. They have not even taken steps to restrict the website's access in India, which is a matter of a day's work, if one wishes to do it," said Srivastava.

mid-day studied the StopNCII website and saw a disclaimer saying they do not ask for any pictures themselves. The website claims that the removal of leaked nudes is done in collaboration with the concerned stake holders. However, the website also has a declaration saying, "StopNCII is not in a position to respond to any media or law enforcement requests." It further redirects visitors to the website to its "partner organisations" - 99 of them. mid-day reached out to DCP (Detection) Datta Nalawade, who currently holds additional charge of the Mumbai Cyber department, and received no response till the time of going to press.