Exclusive | Mumbai: Who will watch the watchmen?

A serious complaint dealing with nonconsensual intimate images of victims is lying unattended to in the Mumbai Policersquos inbox for seven months now Ironically the complainant is an antionline harassment activist who trains the Mumbai Police in matters of cyber law enforcementAkancha Srivastava founder of Akancha Against Harassment has been working since 2017 to fight cybercrimes like deepfakes and cyberstalking 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 countryIn August last year Srivastava told midday she saw certain social media influencers tweet through their official accounts claiming that they could help people get their nonconsensually leaked compromising pictures from the internetldquoThe 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 thismdashand even they didnrsquot ask for the images to be sentmdashthese influencers and the website they were promoting werenrsquot They had no power or authority to do sordquo Srivastava told middayThe website in question Stop NonConsensual 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 internetldquoFirst 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 internetbased platform unless they are affiliated with the platform themselves or are part of law enforcement None of these requisites apply to StopNCIIrdquo said SrivastavaAs 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 seekingimmediate actionldquoMy 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 impossiblerdquo Srivastava saidWith these concerns in mind she has repeatedly followed up with the police not just in the form of emails but also in person ldquoI bring up the issue at the training sessions I hold for them which itself is ironical On one hand Irsquom 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 websitersquos access in India which is a matter of a dayrsquos work if one wishes to do itrdquo said Srivastavamidday 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 ldquoStopNCII is not in a position to respond to any media or law enforcement requestsrdquo It further redirects visitors to the website to its ldquopartner organisationsrdquomdash99 of them midday 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