Cyber labs face WhatsApp hurdle

Despite setting up 44 cyber labs in the state to deal with cyber crimes, the government is finding it tough to stop the use of WhatsApp for spreading false and communal messages. Home department officials have admitted that there is no control worldwide over WhatsApp, which is the easiest tool of communication that most citizens have.

On August 15, the government had launched 38 cyber labs across the state to deal with cyber crimes. “This initiative has been taken to curb cyber crimes. India records 100 cyber attacks everyday and Maharashtra is no exception. Our cyber labs had helped the railways and Bombay Stock Exchange when their websites had been hacked. We have trained 450 of our police officers to deal with cyber crime cases with the help of C-DAC, and 550 more will be trained soon. Crimes such as bank frauds, debit or credit card frauds, morphing of images and cyber attacks will be dealt with the help of the cyber labs,” additional chief secretary, home department, K.P. Bakshi told The Asian Age.

Asked about the messages that go viral via WhatsApp, Mr Bakshi said that it is somewhat difficult to prevent the same. “The messages, if reported, can be blocked. But it is difficult to completely prevent them from going viral. WhatsApp has a privacy policy and is hence reluctant to share information with us. Any objectionable message or post on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be blocked immediately,” he said.

According to the police, it is difficult — but not impossible — to trace the person who originally posted an objectionable message on WhatsApp. “We recently traced students who used WhatsApp in the Mumbai University paper leak case. After checking almost 30 mobile phones of students in two days, we found the main culprit who had sent the paper. He had deleted all the messages from his mobile phone, but we used a software called of C-DAC and retrieved the messages,” said Pratibha Shendge, a senior police officer of the cyber crime cell in Navi Mumbai.

Experts pointed out that WhatsApp has no policy in place to share any information with anyone. “Internet service providers can be briefed about preventing the spread of any objectionable messages. When one sends a message, it first goes to the Internet service provider and then to the recipient. The Internet provider can be made aware of certain words or issues that could be automatically detected without every message being checked,” said Abhishek Belnekar, who works with Tata Consultancy Services.