Kumar Bahukhandi
Warning signals sent from probe agencies and the Union government are not treated as isolated or one-off reports, but as a “seed” to map and disrupt the entire criminal network, WhatsApp said. File | Photo Credit: Reuters
WhatsApp said its probe fan out from the initial ‘seed’ input from government sources to identify and run down the creators or administrators behind scam operations like digital arrests or accounts actively promoting scam activity within groups and channels, etc
New Delhi : Documents placed on record in the Supreme Court showed WhatsApp asserting to the Home Ministry that it detected and banned up to 9,400 accounts linked to ‘digital arrests’ and ‘law enforcement impersonations’ after independent investigations.
The platform said rather than focus and shut down the seed, it had focussed on bringing down the entire network of scamsters, mostly active in Cambodia.
Warning signals sent from probe agencies and the Union government are not treated as isolated or one-off reports, but as a “seed” to map and disrupt the entire criminal network, the platform said.
The platform said its probe fan out from the initial ‘seed’ input from government sources to identify and run down the creators or administrators behind scam operations like digital arrests or accounts actively promoting scam activity within groups and channels, etc.
The communication between WhatsApp and the Home Ministry was annexed to a status report filed on behalf of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) by the Ministry. Attorney-General R. Venkataramani appears for the Ministry in the Supreme Court.
The report said several steps were discussed in a meeting convened by the Inter-Departmental Committee under the chairmanship of the Special Secretary (Internal Security) in March. WhatsApp along with major Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) like Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio and BSNL were invited.
WhatsApp said its work on SIM binding — linking the account with the physical SIM card — was on and the platform would comply with the provisions of The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. These include the provisions related to identification and labelling of ‘Synthetically Generated Information’ (SGI) commonly used in video calls made for ‘digital arrests’.
The Ministry and other stakeholders also agreed on introducing mechanisms for identifying and blocking device IDs used in digital arrest scams. WhatsApp said it would continue to strengthen Artificial IntelligenceI/Machine Learning-based systems to detect impersonation of law enforcement agencies, misuse of official logos and synthetic content.
The report said the online platform has introduced detection models and warning mechanisms to identify impersonation patterns and alert users. It had further agreed to retain data of deleted accounts for a minimum period of 180 days to assist law enforcement investigations.
Recently, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant had flagged digital arrest scams the “most disturbing” and lethal among cyber crimes, which not only result in merely financial loss to victims but also a “blistering sense of violation”. The CJI had said cyber crimes like digital arrests must not be seen as mere economic offences, but an offence against human dignity.
The Home Ministry had clocked over 2.41 lakh complaints related to digital arrests scams alone, involving losses of approximately ₹30,000 crore.
Chief Justice Kant’s Bench had suo motu taken cognisance of digital arrests scams in January this year, terming that victims were psychologically coerced by fraudsters dressed up convincingly as police officers and judicial officers to cough up huge sums of their savings to avert fictional arrests or punitive action.
One of the cases before the Supreme Court was that of a 78-year-old woman lawyer, represented by advocate Vipin Nair, who was duped by fraudsters in a digital arrest scam.
