Supreme Court directs Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe cases of digital arrests in India

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In Summary

The Supreme Court has directed CBI to investigate digital arrest scams, involving impersonation and fraud, with government agencies and IT providers collaborating to combat cybercrime and protect citizens.

In Summary

Key directions related to digital arrest

SC granted CBI full freedom to probe the role of bankers under the Prevention of Corruption Act,1988 where bank accounts are opened for the purposes of digital arrest scams.
States including Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Haryana were instructed to give their consent under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act for a pan-India probe by the CBI.
It also impleaded Reserve Bank of India and sought its assistance in explaining the AI and machine learning tools used to identify fraudulent accounts.
It also directed information technology service providers to cooperate fully with investigators .

What is digital arrest?

Digital Arrest refers to a type of online scam where fraudsters impersonate law enforcement officials such as CBI, Police, ED etc. via phone calls, video calls and falsely accuse victims of involvement in criminal activities to extort money.
Indians lost over Rs 120 crore to ‘digital arrest’ fraud schemes during the first quarter of 2024.

Initiatives by Government to Tackle Digital Arrest

Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre’ (I4C): It has been set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs as an attached office to deal with all types of cybercrimes in the country.
- Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC) has been established at I4C where representatives of major banks, Financial Intermediaries, Payment Aggregators, Telecom Service Providers work together to tackle cybercrime.
Samanvaya Platform (Joint Management Information System): It provides analytics based on interstate linkages of crimes and criminals, involved in cybercrime complaints in various States/UTs.
‘Report and Check Suspect’ on https://cybercrime.gov.in: Central Government has introduced this feature which provides citizens a search option to search I4C’s repository of identifiers of cyber criminals.