NEW DELHI: The government has directed Internet Service Providers to block distribution and transmission of child pornography and sexual abuse content by July 31. “ISP’s... shall be required to adopt and implement the Internet Watch Foundation’s resources on or before July 31 to prevent distribution and transmission of child sexual abuse material,” reads a notification issued by the Ministry of Electronics and IT dated April 18.
The order has come based on the recommendations of an Inter-Ministerial Committee constituted in December 2016 to address the issue, following a Supreme Court order. While admitting that ‘no centralised mechanism exists in India’ to monitor online child sexual abuse material, the committee said most of these websites are dynamic in nature and change their URLs frequently, making it difficult to identify and block content.
Noting that UK-based NGO Internet Watch Foundation maintains a dynamically updated list of such websites, ISPs have been advised to follow the IWF list to block violating websites.