New Delhi, Aug 9 (IANS): The government aims to ensure an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet for Indian citizens, keeping in view the emerging challenges of cybercrimes, and has taken several steps towards reaching this goal, Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said on Wednesday.

Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, the minister said the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and its rules contain provisions for safeguarding ‘Digital Nagriks’ from cyber crimes.

“The IT Act penalises various offences relating to computer resources, including tampering with computer source documents (section 65), dishonestly or fraudulently damaging computer system (section 66), identity theft (section 66C), cheating by impersonation (section 66D), cyber terrorism (section 66F), securing unauthorised access to protected system (section 70), etc,” he informed.

In addition to cyber offences, it also provides for various offences that serve to secure the digital space for women, like violation of bodily privacy (section 66E), transmitting of obscene material (section 67), and publishing or transmission of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form including depicting children in sexually explicit act (sections 67A and 67B).

“Under the Cybercrime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC) Scheme, financial assistance to the tune of Rs 99.88 crore has been provided to all states and union territories for setting up of cyber forensic cum training laboratories, hiring of junior cyber consultants and capacity building of police personnel, public prosecutors and judicial officers,” said Chandrasekhar.

So far, cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 33 states and union territories.

In a bid to safeguard customers from recent surge in customer grievances relating to unauthorised transactions resulting in debits to their accounts/cards, the criteria for determining the customer liability in these circumstances has also been reviewed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

RBI issued a revised direction to all banks with regard to the strengthening of systems and procedures, reporting of unauthorised transactions by customers to banks and zero liability/limited liability of customers along with prescribed reversal timeline, etc.

“On being notified by the customer, the bank shall credit (shadow reversal) the amount involved in the unauthorised electronic transaction to the customer’s account within 10 working days from the date of such notification by the customer (without waiting for settlement of insurance claim, if any),” the minister informed.

The bank has to resolve a customer's complaint within 90 days from the date of receipt of customer’s notification after establishing the customer’s liability.