The Book – Protection of children on Internet

Karnika Seth is a renowned Cyber Lawyer and Expert, and is the Managing Partner of Seth Associates, a law firm in India. She practices law at the Supreme Court of India and the Delhi High Court, and is advisor to many corporate houses and IT companies. Ms. Seth has been officially consulted by the Lok Sabha and the Ministry of Information Technology for her recommendations to develop cyber law in India. She is also a legal advisor to Office of Comptroller of Certifying Authorities under the IT Act, 2000. Ms. Seth has also actively resolved many cybercrime cases with the Indian law enforcement agencies. She is an active speaker on cyber law issues, both in print and electronic media, and delivers special lectures to judicial academies, police academies, Central Bureau of Investigation, senior government officers, industry associations, and corporate entities. She holds a Master’s Degree in Corporate and Commercial Laws from the King’s College, University of London. For authoring this book, Ms. Seth was awarded the Certificate of Honour by the Chief Justice of India on the occasion of Law Day in 2012.

“The book has extremely useful information which will be of immense benefit for all sections of people. This work is an apt and commendable contribution to surging child rights protection movement in India. It aims to bring pertinent cyber awareness on protection of children in cyberspace for the benefit of all sections of our society, be it children, parents, educators, legislators or law enforcement. The Author has written this work with great ingenuity to share her practical expertise on the subject. She creatively elucidates emerging cybercrimes targeting children such as sexual grooming, cyber pornography, vamping, Phishing, cyberbullying, sexting and makes valuable suggestions on best practices to safeguard children on internet and strategies to combat online child abuse. The extraordinary characteristics of this book include its immense practical utility, simple explanation of laws and policies, illustrative writing style, and precise & thoroughly researched content.”
Dr. Gulshan Rai
Director General CERT, Ministry of IT

“This book is an excellent short and timely guide book on protecting children from cybercrimes written with special focus on Indian laws and policies. Ms. Seth has written the book with high degree of precision and simplicity. She has brought out her views and suggestions on how to protect children online. The book is expected to go a long way in the spread of cyber awareness which is very essential in the current digital age.”
Dr. Govind
CEO, NIX!

“Ms. Seth’s book is a unique endeavour that shows path to achieving freedom from online child abuse. Exploitation of children on internet is of communication. The book provides an insight into a socially relevant subject, which needs to be dealt with utmost care. This book is perhaps first book of its kind, which is focusing on online child protection. This book is a book for one and all.”
Rajesh Chharia
special focus on India
President, ISPAI

“This book is a great step towards achieving that goal. Not only does it use a simple and easy to understand writing style but also the book lists the pragmatic aspects of law that may be used to protect our children/adolescents from pornography and cyberbullying. This book is recommended specially for first time parents, people with & without Law background, as well as technical and non technical background populace.”
Dr. S.C. Vats
Chairman, Viyekananda Institute of Professional Studies

Internet and digital communication media including mobile phone messaging services have proved to be a great boon for human society. But technology, especially digital technology has its side effects too. Children are the most vulnerable group who may have to suffer the negative effects of advancement of internet and digital technology. Not very long ago it was reported that one Yadava Manikanta created a Facebook page to upload and share images of children reportedly for sexual gratification. He was arrested under POCSO Act and also under Tamil Nadu Goonda’s Act for creating/distributing child porn materials in the electronic media. Such victimization of children in the internet was again noted within a couple of months after sentencing of Manikanta, when a 19 year old boy from Pollachi, Coimbatore created a similar page in Facebook with images of girl children and sexually explicit comments that made the page a typical web-page for catering the needs of sexual gratification abusing children. Such incidences are growing in India. But it would be wrong to say that children are victimized only by way pornography in the internet. There are various issues which may need to be seen when speaking about protection of children in the internet. Karnika Seth’s book “Protection of children on internet” published by Universal law publishing, an imprint of LexisNexis, caters this need.

This book is divided into seven chapters, has uniqueness: the images to explain the crucial problems in a child friendly way. In the introduction, the author shows the statistics of child users and introduces the readers briefly with the impact of internet on children. The second chapter deals with online threats to children. The author discusses about types of offences that may happen to children including sexual offences. This chapter also speaks about gaming and its effects on children. The third chapter showcases some examples of child abuse on internet. It has recent as well as old cases of cyber crimes against children, each of which created unique understanding of the issue in its own way. Chapter four provides a holistic approach to the guidelines that must be followed by parents and children while surfing the net. It needs to be mentioned here that this chapter is a must read for all readers including school managements, parents as well as matured teens who may understand the issue. Chapter 5 is a legal researcher’s delight. It elaborates the laws that are presently being used to prevent child abuse on internet. These laws and legal provisions include constitutional provisions, National policy for children, Convention on child rights to provisions from Indian penal code dealing with child rights and child abuse especially in relation to digital media, Information technology Act, 2000(Amended in 2008), POCSO Act, Juvenile Justice Care and protection Act, provisions from different laws in regard to economic crimes, intermediary liability etc. This chapter along with all these provisions are must read for stakeholders including the police, lawyers, judges, child welfare committee members, Juvenile justice board members, child line volunteers, teachers and of course the parents who may have come across any incidence involving crime against children on internet or may want to be aware of such issues. Further, I feel matured teenagers of the age group of 16 to 19 must also know these laws and this book is the best way to learn about these laws.

The sixth chapter discusses about international initiatives that have been taken to safe guard children on internet. This includes discussions about organizations including the UN, OECD, ISPCAN etc. This chapter also discusses about initiatives taken up by countries like US, UK etc in this regard. The seventh and the last chapter of this book has author’s personal touch whereby she discusses her own views to tackle the issue. It needs to be understood that even though there exists many guidelines or safety tips in regard to safety of children on internet, none of them may prove fruitful unless the stakeholders accept to follow these guidelines and make their own unique policies to suit the needs of the society or environment they are working for. This chapter emphasizes on this issue. The author further highlights the needs for constant collaboration among the stakeholders including schools, parents, government and NGOs to create awareness for this. At the end, the book gives a list of cyber crime cells in India, a rich bibliography and the full texts of Information Technology Act, 2000( amended in 2008) and Protection of children from sexual offences Act, 2012.

The designing of the book, packaging, framing of the chapters and usage of images, make the book a unique one. Most importantly, the pricing of the book makes it affordable for all educational institutes, criminal justice academies and general individuals who would be interested in reading about the issue.
Debarati Halder
Advocate & Managing Director, Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling