Cybercrime laws need urgent change: Mumbai CP Sanjay Pandey

Cybercrimes should be dealt with under a separate law with provisions for stringent action This is the crux of a proposal sent by Mumbai Commissioner of Police CP Sanjay Pandey to the state home ministry Jolted by a series of midday reports on the harassment of borrowers of loan apps state home minister Dilip Walse Patil talked of amending the law last week Pandey has been a staunch advocate of a new cybercrime law for a long timePandey told midday ldquoThere is no law to deal with the cybercrime cases and fraudsters are taking advantage of the same The provisions made in the existing law are not enough to deal with such cases and take stringent action I have sent a proposal to the government explaining the need for a cybercrime actrdquoThis newspaper has been consistently highlighting the dark side of cybercrimes particularly by loan appsEver since he took charge as the cityrsquos police chief Pandey has been vocal about the need for new legislation to handle crimes emanating from the online world During a meeting with journalists at Mumbai Press Club in March Pandey had said ldquoI am a computer engineer and when talking about cybercrimes there is some basic problem because we donrsquot have a separate act to deal with cyber offences except a few sections of the IT Act And there is no data protection act like other countries have already made comprehensive laws to deal with cyber offencesrdquoAlso read Loan apps racket Rs 423 lakh extorted for loan of Rs 5000lsquoBiggest challengersquoldquoCyber offences are emerging as one of the biggest challenges not only for us but also for the entire world To deal with it we need to make some serious changes in the law and the way investigations are being handledrdquo he told midday on Monday adding ldquoI have been raising since long about the need for a cybercrime act at various platformsrdquoThe top cop also highlighted another challenge his force is facing in cybercrime investigation which is done by cops in the rank of police inspectors ldquoThere are only a few PI rank officers and everyone cannot be deployed for cyber investigation The police subinspectors PSI who are young and know more about todayrsquos cybercrimes should be allowed to carry out probesrdquo Pandey saidPolice chief Pandey speaks on cyber security at the Indian Merchants Chamber Churchgate on April 4 File picIn its proposal the police department has cited the example of PIrank officers being roped in to crack cybercrime cases which were initially handled by ACPrank officers after cases started risingIn 2019 the Intelligence Bureau had called for a meeting to discuss the menace of these newage crimes where the Mumbai police had made a similar proposal ldquoApart from the cyber cell we need a dedicated team of young officers who are more enthusiastic and want to learn new challenges of the cyber worldrdquo a senior officer said ldquoWhen these officers get transferred from one place to another we need to ensure that they are part of the cyber team onlyrdquoAs per Mumbai police data released in January there were 1032 posts for PIrank officers but the force had only 796 such staffers The sanctioned headcount for PSIrank officers is 3279lsquoNo need for a new lawrsquoAdvocate Dr Prashant Mali who specialises in cyber laws said ldquoThere is no need for a new law the existing law is enough The police only need will and motivation to implement it Currently the implementation is poor Cybercrime offences are registered easily and the conviction rate is ultrapoor which is one of the reasons why the number of cases is risingrdquo He added ldquoThere is also a need for a specialised cyber cadre in the state and the officers should be recruited from different fields such as engineering charted accountancy and company secretary The recruitment should be on the basis of their expertise and capabilities to deal with cyber offences and not based on their physical appearancerdquolsquoEven if the victim reaches within the golden hour he doesnrsquot get immediate support The issue is not about lack of laws but lack of coordination amongst social media platforms banks payment aggregators and the policerdquo said Ritesh Bhatia founding director V4WEB cybersecurity