Protection of Woman in Digital World

Dr. Harunrashid A. Kadri

 Introduction
• Extensivedevelopmentof ITin last2 decades
• Fastestinformation beyond theimagination
• However,tremendous growth in crime rate
• Commission of crime in cyber space is
constantly Increasing throughout the world
• Target is everyone including the
Governments, non-State entities and private
individuals
• Damage to the social, economic, political ,
public and privatelife of the individuals
• Let us discuss the Impact of IT on woman in
the DigitalWorld
 IT and Woman Empowerment
• Personal Development
• Self Learning
• Advancement
• Media for expression
• Entertainment
• Acquiring Knowledge
• Learning new skills
• Opening up earning opportunities
• New Recipes
• Communication with Childhood friends, parents, etc
would relieve from feeling of loneliness
• A mobile phone can help foster a sense of independence
• Availability of information even in remote areas
• Increased economic or professional opportunities
 IT and Woman Empowerment
• Ensures Economical independence
• Women will be more decisive as mothers, wives,
taxpayers and as humans
• Means for better education to their children and also for
themselves without stepping out of their homes
• Opportunities to continue education within their homes
even after marriage
• Education available to women within the walls of their
homes
• Means to enhance literacy among Dalits and others who
are far from the big cities.
• Women will become productive partners of the Nation.
 IT and Woman Empowerment
• IT is based on knowledge and available to all, the powerful, rich,
the weak & the poor
• IT has demolished most of the walls and boundaries and is going
to demolish more
• Women would be free and able to express themselves in the
newly-found environment of economical freedom.
But How many women have access to IT?
• Millions of poor dalit families and others do not have access to
digital technology
• Women are found not benefitting from mobile equally to men
• Woman in a low- to middle-income country are 21% less likely to
own a mobile phone than a man, leading to a mobile phone
gender gap of approximately 300 million women
• Cost of mobile or PC, Laptop, cultural barriers, limited technical
literacy are the Women’s barriers to IT
 IT and Woman Empowerment
• Boon or Bane ?
• Opportunities VS Challenges
• How to ensure a women safety & security
while using internet from Cybercrimes?
 Cybercrimes
Cybercrime:
• Cybercrime means criminal
activity carried out by
means of computers or the
Internet
• It is a voluntary act or
omission that adversely
affects a person or property
or a person’s computer
systems and punishable
under the IT Act, 2000 or
under the Indian Penal
Code.
 Cybercrimes Against Woman
• At least one cybercrime is being committed every 10
minutes in India (2017 NBCR).
• Maharashtra has seen a 41 percent rise in cyber
crime cases in 2017 from 2016
• Cyber crimes in India have grown in the last three
years, with the number rising from 9,622 and 11,592
to 12,317 during 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively
• Cybercrime takes a $600 Billion toll on the global
economy (A study by McAfee & CSIS)
• Cyber Attacks costs 0.8 percent of the global GDP
(Report- Economic Impact of Cyber Crime)
• The biggest problem - Cybercrime support tools
available in market such as exploit kits, custom
malware, botnet rentals, dendroid, etc.
Cybercrimes in India
 Risks faced by women over the internet
Cybercrimes notorious and detrimental to dignity and
freedom of woman:
• Cyber Harassment:
• Unwanted sexually explicit emails, text or online
messages
• Inappropriate or offensive advances on social
networking websites or internet chat rooms
• Threats of physical and/or sexual violence by
email, text (or online) messages
• Hate speech - meaning language that denigrates,
insults, threatens or targets an individual based on
her identity (gender) and other traits (such as
sexual orientation or disability).
 Risks faced by women over the internet
• Cyber Defamation
• Cyber defamation is publishing of defamatory material against
another person with the help of computers or internet.
• Photo Morphing
• With the number of pictures people share on Social Media,
hacker use your photographs and morph them to use it for
porn sites or blackmailing for financial / sexual gains.
• Online Harassment
• Harassment through electronic means by sending grossly
offensive or menacing information, and persistently causing
annoyance, injury, insult etc.
• Cyber Stalking
• Cyber stalking is stalking by means of email, text (or online)
messages or the internet. Stalking involves repeated incidents,
which may or may not individually be innocent acts, but
combined undermine the victim’s sense of safety and cause
distress, fear or alarm
• Stalking is a unique crime in that it is composed of a series of otherwise
legal acts
 Cyber Offences
• Email Spoofing
• Creation of email messages with a forged sender
address.
• To mislead the recipient about the origin of the
message
e.g. In October 2013, an e-mail which looked like it was
from the Swedish company Fingerprint Cards was sent to a
news agency, saying that Samsung offered to purchase the
company. The news spread and the stock exchange rate
surged by 50%. It was later discovered the e-mail was a
fake.
e.g. Fraudulent emails for partnership, will execution,
award.
 Cyber Offences
• Dating Scam
• Scammers take advantage of people looking for romantic
partners, often via dating websites, apps or social media by
pretending to be prospective companions. They play on
emotional triggers to get you to provide money, gifts or
personal details.
• Offer & Shopping Scams
• Online shopping scams involve scammers pretending to be
legitimate online sellers, either with a fake website or a fake ad
on a genuine retailer site.
• Link Baiting Scam
– To use messages like Your photo just got leaked on internet,
check here:
– Look what people are talking about you:
– This video of yours is going viral:
– By clicking on these links, you are more likely to send the similar
message to people from your profile.
 Cyber Offences
• Profile Hacking
• When you are not able to login to your account, it means
someone has changed email id and have taken complete
control over your account.
• Non-Consensual Pornography (Or Revenge Porn)
• Online distribution of sexually graphic photographs or
videos without the consent of the individual in the images
• The perpetrator is often an ex-partner who obtains
images or videos in the course of a prior relationship, and
aims to publicly shame and humiliate the victim, in
retaliation for ending a relationship
• Images can also be obtained by hacking into the victim’s
computer, social media accounts or phone, and can aim to
inflict real damage on the target’s ‘real-world’ life (such as
getting them fired from their job).
 Cyber Offences
• Violation of Body Privacy
• Sharing your personal photos on social media
• Slut-Shaming
• Slut-shaming involves criticizing women for their
transgression of accepted codes of sexual conduct
• Admonishing them for behavior, attire or desires that
are more sexual than society
• Slut-shaming is used by men and women
• The action of slut-shaming can be considered to be a
form of social punishment
 Cyber Crimes
• Sextortion
• People are extorted with a nude image of themselves
they shared on the Internet through sexting.
• They are later coerced into performing sexual acts with
the person doing the extorting or are coerced into posing
or performing sexuality on camera, thus
producing hardcore pornography
• Cyber Bullying
• Cyber bullying includes sending, posting, or sharing
negative, threatening, harmful, false, or humiliating
content of the victim
Impact: Psychological issues, feeling of loss of self
respect, suicide, surrender to unusual demands
Reasons for growth of cybercrimes against Women
• The trans-national nature of the internet - no
boundaries
• Low equipment cost – Cheap mobiles and tablets
• Numerous vulnerable targets
• Lonely woman – Android phone is the only Companion
• Away from family & hence computers become their
trusted friend
• Easy concealment due to anonymity
• Cyber crimes go unreported due to hesitation &
shyness of the victim or fear of defamation
• The problem of cybercrimes against women has
posed the biggest challenge to whole world
 Motives of Cybercrime
• Financial Gain 33.3%
• Fraud/Illegal gain 9.6 %
• Insult to modesty of woman 5.2 %
• Sexual Exploitation 5.2 %
• Causing Disrepute 3.3 %

(Data Source:NCRB)
 Profile of Accused in Cybercrimes
• Business Competitor 19.6%
• Neighbors/Friends/Relatives 14.7%
• Professional Hackers 13.5%
• Students 10%
• Sexual Predators 5.1%
• Disgruntled employees 3.1%
Cybercrime Status in India:
• 2015: 11592 Cases registered
• 2016: 12317 Cases registered
• Only in 30% cases Charge sheet filed/persons
arrested – Criminals are mostly male
(Data Source:NCRB)
 How to safeguard yourself?
• We should not wait for the sky to fall
• Wake up and secure yourself
• Better To Safe Than Sorry
• Never trust those who are unknown to you
• Be always cautious
• Privacy settings – Friends Only option
• Prevent friends of friends or public to see your photos, posts, private info, etc.
• Do not accept or send friend request to unknown persons or friends of friend
• Internet Never Forgets Never Deletes
• Never share the personal info, photos, bank details, etc. on FB, Whatsapp,
Insta-gram, etc. Once shared you cannot control it. FB, Whatsapp and other
social media backups your information every day and store it
• Nothing is free in this World
• Not even FB, Instagram, Whatsapp.
• Any awards, gift, is aimed at stealing your bank details, personal information
for fraud or business, sale or marketing.
 How to safeguard yourself?
• Do not allow anybody to enter into your sphere of
privacy
• Do not respond to fraudulent SMS, email or any post
from unknown person or fraudulent name, offering a
gift, award, reward etc. You may also search on Google
whether the offer is authentic or fraudulent
• Do not click on any link of free gifts - It’s a fraud
• Do not share your location, it may help criminals to grab
the opportunity & commit crime if you are not at home
• Don’t give them privilege to know everything about you
• Just because its not posted on social media does not
mean it’s not happening, its QUIETLY PROGRESSING or
already published, you may not know it.
 How to safeguard yourself?
• Never surrender to any incident of Morphing, Stalking,
Fraudulent email, Cyber threats or any Cybercrime
• Never be afraid, lodge a Police complaint immediately.
• Do not forget to sign out from email, FB and Bank online
accounts
• Close the doors by effective password selection. Don’t use
your name, surname, DOB, name of your place, etc as
passwords
• Never store passwords on phone, laptop, ipad or any
gadgets which are connected to net
• Never share your passwords to anybody on phone call or
email or by any means. It should always be personal and
stored only in your brain
• You may loose the savings of you whole life just in a few
seconds.
 Administrative Measures
• Sensitizing & training the Police, advocates and
general public regarding Cybercrimes
• Laying down guidelines for intermediaries to pull
down any content offensive to women
• Conducting awareness training programs as part
of curriculum in Schools
• Effective Implementation of the Information
Technology Act, 2000 & IPC
• Further steps based on research and analysis on
the Cybercrimes against woman
 CONCLUSION
• Internet is a boon for humanity but if you are
careless, it may turn to be a bane. Too much
sharing on web is too bad. You should decide how
much to be shared and with whom to be shared.
Don’t try to be celebrity on social media. Don’t
allow the outsiders to enter your sphere of
privacy. Cyber Criminals are always waiting for an
opportunity to attack you. It’s not that you should
not use the digital technology or social media at
all. But make use of it for your personal
development and for pleasure provided you
safeguard yourself.
 Any Questions?

A Big

Thank You