The primary goal of the new IT policies is to protect Indian citizens from fake misleading information, online intimidation and predatory behaviour from cyber criminals, said Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar in an exclusive interview to The New Indian.
“I want to say in clear terms that our policy goals and our duty to the citizen of India are to ensure that the internet is open, safe, trusted and accountable. In these rules we have dealt with issues of safety and trust. We have also had to deal with accountability because the accountability structure put in place in the last set of rules, which was appointing a Grievance Redressal Officer has not worked adequately. And therefore, we have created a Grievance Appellate Committee so that those citizens who are dissatisfied or not happy with the grievance redressal mechanism of the platform can appeal to the grievance appellate committee,” Chandrasekhar
The citizen will still hold the right to appeal to the court against a platform in case they want to.
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“Users of internet in India are women, children, elderly, it’s a huge cross section of our people. It is necessary that they are protected. It is necessary to ensure that people don’t predate on them, mislead them, or intimidate them,” he added.
Finally, he said the adherence to constitutional norms in India on part of the intermediary like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter is non-negotiable.
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The newly introduced Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022, notified by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, requires social media companies to submit to the authority of a “Grievance Appellate Committee” that the union government will set up by January 2023.
“We will announce structure of Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) and its powers, structure and scope soon”, he said. It will have one government official and two independent bodies.