THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The country needs a comprehensive piece of legislation to tackle cyber crimes, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has said. “The piece of legislation has been necessitated by the Supreme Court order quashing Section 66A of the IT Act. The order has affected several pending court cases and the police are finding it difficult to slap charges against cyber offenders,” Chennithala said on Friday.
The minister was delivering the inaugural address at the seminar on ‘Cyber governance and cyber security’ organised by the Institute for Sustainable Development and Governance (ISDG) here on Friday.
Chennithala said that the state government was contemplating on having a new piece of legislation and the police had been asked to do the research work.
The government had envisaged several programmes to ensure the safety, security, privacy and individuality of net users, he said. Cyberdome, a cyber hub for the police to check cyber crimes, would be opened at the Technopark in July. Cyber police stations would be opened in Thiruvananthapuram, Infopark (Kochi) and Kozhikode.
The proposed Police University would give special focus to cyber crime studies.
Student Awareness Programmes
Chennithala said the next phase of the ‘Clean Campus Safe Campus’ programme of the police would include cyber awareness classes for students. “PTAs and NGOs will be part of the programme slated to begin this academic year,” he said.
“A safe internet campaign will be conducted through the social media. The government also plans to conduct a mass cyber literacy programme,” he said.
Cherian Samuel of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis delivered the keynote address on ‘Global cyber security and internet governance.’