Chennai: The Centre is considering the appointment of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) in every Indian city to tackle cybercrime threats and online content violations targeting women.
This was informed to the Madras High Court that had directed the Union government to evolve a mechanism to remove private images and videos of women, uploaded online without their consent, from the internet.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh, on July 15, had called for a concrete system to address the growing problem of non-consensual intimate media being disclosed. The court is hearing a petition filed by a woman advocate whose private videos were allegedly recorded and circulated by a former partner, leaving her traumatised after the content appeared on pornographic websites, messaging applications, and social media websites.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, through senior counsel A Kumaraguru, informed the court on Tuesday that Union home secretary Govind Mohan had flagged the urgent need for designated CISOs in every city earlier this month. These officers would supervise cyber complaint response units, coordinate helplines for victims, ensure immediate takedown of objectionable content, conduct regular security audits, and proactively counter emerging digital threats.
While Justice Venkatesh welcomed the proposal, he also raised concerns about the psychological toll on officers.
“What will this do to his mental health? An officer whose only job from morning to evening is to sift through objectionable content. It can impact his mental well-being too. It is like judges constantly handling family court cases-the mind either breaks down or becomes desensitised,” the court observed.
He insisted on a standard operating procedure (SOP) to ensure uniformity and objectivity in handling such complaints, granting the Centre time until August 5 to present the framework. The home ministry informed the court that an SOP is being prepared in consultation with the women and child development ministry, which must also outline preventive measures to ensure removed content does not resurface.
The court had earlier directed the Centre to create a “prototype system to address such complaints efficiently” and explore appointing nodal officers for grievance redressal.
“Technology is always there. What is required is the inclination to put it to use for the benefit of the common man,” justice Venkatesh had said, observing that authorities act swiftly only when the victim is “powerful.”
The petitioner’s lawyer has claimed that although the ministry of electronics and information technology had complied with the court’s earlier direction to block certain sites, the same content kept reappearing across platforms. The court responded by urging deployment of tools such as PhotoDNA and artificial intelligence-based technology to ensure permanent removal of such material.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the court recorded that 22 objectionable videos featuring the petitioner had been taken down, though six remained online. The Union government assured the bench that these would also be removed shortly.
