Cyber Crimes with special reference to Boys Locker Room

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Today we all are living in a world of social distancing and the conditions have forced us to stay away from our friends, families and our work too. But human nature always seeks for the ways in which he can reach to these three, therefore work from home and the use of social media has increased immensely. Because the physical meetings are not possible anymore the virtual ones are increasing. As we have found our way, the criminals also found their way to do the crime i.e. online crimes or cyber-crimes.

The evolution of technology and increasing accessibility of smart tech means there are multiple access points within user’s homes for hackers to exploit. Where on one hand law enforcement attempts to tackle the growing issue, criminal numbers continue to grow on the other side., taking advantage of the anonymity of the internet.

What Is Cyber Crime?

The bane of internet, cyber-crime refers to all the crimes and all illegal activities carried out using technology, cybercrime is incredibly organized and professionalized.

One such incident that happened recently is Boys Locker Room. Let us take a view what are the probable offences that has been committed by members of such groups.

Boys Locker Room

These recent case of Boys Locker Room has made his place in the headlines of news within very few days. The incident got its beginning from the screenshots of a boys group chat shared on Instagram stories of its users and soon turned out to be an immense issue of feminism.

The revelations regarding the Boys Locker room group chats among teenage boys in Delhi have shed light on the toxic masculine behavior among the boys even of this age, which gives rise to the rape culture that plagues our society.

With the flow of news, the matter being reported to the police and the Delhi Cyber cell took the charge of the same and registered the criminal case regarding the activities of this group.

Boys Locker Room is a chat group on Instagram with hundreds of south Delhi boys in it, allegations are put that the same is used for sharing photos of underage girls, objectifying them, promoting rape culture, revealed a user on Twitter on Sunday May 3. THE Boys allegedly shared the morphed photographs of teenage girls, with the intention of body shaming and slut shamming them.

Possible Offences Committed by Such Group

Section 66 E, IT Act – Violation of Privacy[1]

The concerned section covers the offence of sharing images of “a private area of any person without his or her consent”. The term private will include naked or undergarment – clad genitals, public area, buttocks or female breast.

The sharing of private images of girls of any age on any platform without their consent would be an offence under this section.

Punishment Upon Conviction:

Imprisonment of up to 3 years, and or/a fine of up to Rs. 2 lakhs.

Section 67 A, IT Act – Transmitting Sexually Explicit Material[2]

This section covers the offence of sharing any kind of images that shows a person is engaged in a sexual act or conduct.

Sharing of either real or morphed images purporting to show girls (underage or otherwise) engaged in a sexual act would be an offence under this section.

Punishment Upon Conviction:

Imprisonment of up to 5 years, and/or a fine of up to Rs. 10 lakhs.

Section 67 B, IT Act – Transmitting Sexually Material Depicting A Child [3]

This section covers not just the representation of children in sexual acts or conduct, but the creation or spreading of any digital text or images that depicts children “in obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner”

The sharing of any real or morphed images of underage girls on the group chat would be considered an offence under this section- and perhaps even some of the comments and discussions on the group could fall within its ambit as well.

Punishment Upon Conviction:

Imprisonment of up to 5 years, and/or a fine of up to Rs 10 lakhs.

Section 354 C, IPC – Voyeurism

This section covers offence of taking or sharing of a picture of a woman engaging in a private act in such conditions where she would have an expectation of privacy.

Though this is similar to Section 66E of the IT Act, but has an additional benefit of being a cognizable offence, a minimum conviction period, and an enhanced sentence for subsequent convictions. This also covers the sharing of images which may not fully depict a private area of a person, say if it were cropped to try and avoid the consequences of the IT Act offences described above.

Punishment Upon Conviction:

Imprisonment of 1-3 years, and a fine. For subsequent convictions, imprisonment of 3-7 years.

Section 354 D, IPC – Stalking

The offence of stalking includes “monitoring the use by a woman of the internet, email or any other form of communication”.

Thus, hacking into the girls’ social media profiles and chats, or even collecting their photos from social media, would be an offence under this section.

Punishment Upon Conviction:

Imprisonment of up to 3 years and a fine.

Section 14 & 15, POCSO Act – Child Pornography

The section says that use of a child for pornographic purposes, which includes photos of their sexual organs or their indecent/obscene representation, is an offence under Section 14 of the POCSO Act. Even the storage of any pornographic material involving a child with the intention of sharing it, is an offence under Section 15.

The sharing of morphed and real images of underage girls on the ‘Bois Locker Room’ group, would be a violation of these provisions.

Punishment upon conviction:

Imprisonment of 5 years or more and a fine (Section 14), and imprisonment of up to 3 years and a fine (Section 15).

Conclusion

Now one of the most important aspect that needs to be known here is that all the members of the group chat are underage i.e. below 18 years therefore they may not be treated as an adult but as a juvenile, and Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 would apply to them. The juvenility of the boys makes a difference or not is in the hands of the court.

But from all that has been happened it is clear by now that the actions of the boys on group are no less than serious and should be punishable. Though the offences are not in a category of heinous offences therefore they will not have punishment of more than 7 years in any case. But in any case their proceeding goes along treating them as an adult this would be remarkable under Juvenile law.

References

[1] https://www.thequint.com/news/law/

[2] https://www.timesnownews.com/mirror-now/crime/article


Author: Shivani Chouhan


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