In Re: Prajwala Letter Dated 18. 2. 2015 Videos Of Sexual Violence And Recommendations vs. . . . . . . . .

ITEM NO.301 COURT NO.4 SECTION PIL-W

S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

SMW (Crl.)No(s).3/2015

IN RE: PRAJWALA LETTER DATED 18.2.2015 VIDEOS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS

(With appln.(s) for impleadment)

Date : 23-10-2017 This matter was called on for hearing today.

CORAM :

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE MADAN B. LOKUR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE UDAY UMESH LALIT

Ms. N.S. Nappinai, Adv. (A.C.)

Ms. Ruby Singh Ahuja, Adv. Mr. Vishal Gehrana, Adv. Ms. Tahira Karanjawala, Adv.

Mr. Priyadarshi Banerjee, Adv.

Mr. Arvind Chari, Adv.

Mr. Saransh Kumar, Adv. Mr. Sharvan Sahny, Adv.

For Petitioner(s) Ms. Aparna Bhat, AOR Mr. Mayank Sapra, Adv. Ms. Joshita Pai, Adv.

For Respondent(s)

For CBI/MHA Mr. R. Balasubramanian, Adv. Ms. Gunwant Dara, Adv. Ms. Sushma Suri, AOR(NP) Mr. Mukesh Kumar Maroria, AOR(NP)

• Yahoo Mr. Samir Ali Khan, AOR Mr. Sanjay Kumar, Adv. Mr. Soham Kumar, Adv.
• Facebook Ireland Mr. Sidharth Luthra, Sr. Adv. Ms. Saanjh Purohit, Adv. Ms. Richa Srivastava, Adv. Mr. Tejas Chhabra, Adv. Mr. Nitin Saluja, Adv. Mr. S. S. Shroff, AOR(NP)

Facebook India Ms. Richa Srivastava, Adv. Mr. S. S. Shroff, AOR (NP)

Google Mr. Sajan Poovayya, Sr. Adv. Digitally signed by SANJAY KUMAR Date: 2017.10.26 13:58:05 IST Reason: Signature Not Verified

Mrs. Manik Karanjawala, Adv. Mr. Avishkar Singhvi, Adv. for M/s. Karanjawala & Co. Microsoft Mr. V. Giri, Sr. Adv. Mr. Divyam Agarwal, AOR WhatsApp Mr. Kapil Sibal, Sr. Adv. Mr. Shashank Mishra, Adv. Mr. Koshy John, Adv. Mr. Vivek Reddy, Adv. Mr. Raghav, Adv. Mr. Ashwin Reddy, Adv. Mr. Pranav Awasthi, Adv. Mr. S.S. Shroff, Adv.(NP)

UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R

On 18th of February, 2015, this Court had received a letter from NGO-Prajwala to the effect that videos of sexual violence were being circulated in abundance.

After hearing learned counsel for the parties, an order was passed on 22nd March, 2017 constituting a Committee to assist and advise this Court on the feasibility of ensuring that videos depicting rape, gang rape and child pornography are not available for circulation, apart from anything else, to protect the identity and reputation of the victims and also because circulation of such videos cannot be in public interest at all.

We had expected the Committee to preferably arrive at a consensus on the possibility of ensuring that objectionable videos pertaining to child pornography, gang rape and rape are not made available on the

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internet. For some technical reasons, if that was not possible to explain and detail the reasons why it was not possible.

The Committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. Ajay Kumar, the then Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The following persons participated in the deliberations of the Committee:

• 2. Sh. Arvind Kumar, GC, Cyber Laws and e-Security, MeitY.
• 3. Dr. Sanjay Bahl, DG, Cert-In;
• 4. Sh. Rakesh Maheshwari, Scientist G, MeitY;
• 5. Sh. Sunil Pant, Deputy Secretary, MHA;
• 6. Sh. Chakit Swarup, Product Manager, Digital India, MHA;
• 7. Ms. Aparna Bhat, Counsel for the Petitioner;
• 8. Ms. N.S. Nappinai, Amicus Curiae;
• 9. Sh. Vikram Langeh, Manager Trust & Safety, Facebook;
• 10. Dr. Jim Hunt, Software Engineer, Facebook;
• 11. Sh. Michael Yoon, Policy Manager, Safety & Content, Facebook;
• 12. Dr. Anthony Surleraux, Child Safety, Google;
• 13. Dr. Ksenia Duxfield Karyakina, Policy, Google;
• 14. Ms. Gitanjli Duggal, Legal, Google India;
• 15. Sh. Robin Fernandes, Grievance Officer, Yahoo;
• 16. Sh. S. Chandrasekhar, Group Director, Microsoft;
• 17. Dr. Radhakrishnan Srikanth, Group Program Manager, Microsoft;
• 18. Sh. Balakrishnan Santhanam, Sr Program Manager, Microsoft;
• 19. Ms. Keyla Maggessy, Law Enforcement Response Manager, WhatsApp;

20. Ms. Gayle Argon, Legal WhatsApp.

The Committee commenced its proceedings on 5th April, 2017 and met virtually on day to day basis. The Committee also took the advice of the experts who made presentation before the Committee. The experts are:

• 1. Ms. Susie Hargreaves, CEO and Mr. Fred Langford, Dy. CEO, Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), UK;
• 2. Professor Venkatesh Babu, IISc. Bengaluru:
• 3. Mr. John Shehan, NCMEC, USA;
• 4. Sh. Atul Kabra, Security Expert, FireEye, Bengaluri;

Certain inputs were also received from various other experts being:

• 1. Dr. Hany Farid, Professor & Chair, Computer Science, Dartmouth College, USA.
• 2. Dr. Mayank Vatsa, Mayank Vatsa, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor, West Virginia, USA.
• 3. Dr. CV Jawqaqhar, Associate Professor, IIIT, Delhi.
• 4. Prof Dr. Anderson Rocha, Associate Dean, Institute of Computing, UNVIERSITY OF CAMPINAS, SP – BRAZIL.

Presentations and papers were also discussed by the Committee and the following presentations and submissions were made:

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• 1. Presentation by Ms. Aparna Bhat, Advocate for Petitioner/Committee.
• 2. Presentation by Ms. N.S. Nappinai, Amicus Curiae/Committee Member.
• 3. Submission by Facebook representatives.
• 4. Presentation and Submission by Google representatives.
• 5. Presentation and Submission by Microsoft representatives.
• 6. Submission by Yahoo representative.
• 7. Combined industry submission of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Yahoo.
• 8. Presentation by Ministry of Home Affairs representative.
• 9. Written submission by WhatsApp.
• 10. Oral Presentation of NCMEC, USA and formal response to written queries.
• 11. Submission by Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), UK.
• 12. Presentation of Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), UK.
• 13. Presentation of Mr. Atul Kabra.

The submissions of learned senior counsel for WhatsApp Inc. were taken into consideration as well as those of the representative of WhatsApp who assisted the Committee. The following persons represented WhatsApp Inc.:

• 1. Mr. Matt Jones, Software Engineer;
• 2. Ms. Keyla Maggessy, Law Enforcement Response Management:
• 3. Mr. Christian Dowell, Associate General Counsel.

Two members from WhatsApp Inc., viz., Ms. Keyla Maggessy and Ms. Gayle Argon were also co-opted in the Committee.

After a full discussion, a comprehensive report has been submitted to this Court by the Committee in two volumes. The second volume contains the presentations made.

We have gone through the contents of the first volume which deals with various issues that had arisen before the Committee.

All the parties before the Committee agreed on certain recommendations based on proposals made during the deliberations.

Part I of Chapter 7 of first volume of the Report contains the proposals in which the Committee was able to arrive at a consensus while Part II consists of the proposals in which the Committee was not able to arrive at a consensus.

We have been taken through the proposals as well as the recommendations made by the Committee on which there was a consensus.

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We may note that Proposal No.9 was actually dropped by the Committee. In other words, there are 11 proposals on which there is agreement between the members of the Committee and one proposal which pertained to WhatsApp Inc. being Proposal No.18 which has been accepted while Proposal No.19 pertaining to WhatsApp Inc. was dropped.

The proposals and the recommendations made on which there is consensus read as follows:

		Proposal	Recommendations
1.	a)	The search engines expand<br>the list of key words<br>which may possibly be<br>used by a user to search<br>for CP content	Government of India<br>may<br>work<br>with<br>the<br>represented companies<br>as<br>well<br>as<br>civil<br>society organizations<br>to suggest expansion<br>of the list of key<br>words for showing CP<br>warning<br>ads/Public<br>service<br>message<br>on<br>search.
	b)	These key words should<br>also<br>be<br>in<br>Indian<br>languages and vernacular<br>search.	The<br>same<br>may<br>be<br>gradually expanded to<br>other<br>Indian<br>languages<br>where<br>applicable.
	c)	These key words should be<br>expanded to cover RGR<br>content.	For<br>RGR,<br>the<br>Government of India<br>may<br>work<br>with<br>the<br>represented companies<br>as<br>well<br>as<br>civil<br>society organisations<br>to suggest the list<br>of key words for RGR<br>warning<br>ads/Public<br>service message.
2.		Creating<br>an<br>administrative<br>mechanism<br>for<br>reporting<br>and

	maintenance of data in<br>India:
a)	Either within the CBI, or<br>under the aegis of the<br>MHA, a cell must be set<br>up to deal with these<br>crimes;	The Committee agrees<br>that there is a need<br>to create a Central<br>Reporting<br>Mechanism<br>(India's<br>hotline<br>portal), as has been<br>done<br>in<br>other<br>countries,<br>like<br>in<br>the U.S. with NCMEC.<br>Further there is a<br>need<br>to<br>strengthen<br>law<br>enforcement<br>in<br>this<br>area.<br>Any<br>person/organization<br>should<br>be<br>able<br>to<br>report any CP and RGR<br>content in India with<br>ease with provision<br>for<br>anonymous<br>reporting.<br>This<br>portal<br>may<br>go<br>for<br>INHOPE membership, as<br>an Indian Hotline.
b)<br>c)	A hash bank for RGR<br>content be created (under<br>the charge and control of<br>Ministry of Home Affairs,<br>GoI<br>or<br>through<br>authorities<br>or<br>NGOs<br>authorized by it);<br>GoI to formulate specific<br>parameters<br>for<br>identifying RGR content	The<br>Committee<br>also<br>agreed that there is<br>a need to develop a<br>centralised agency to<br>maintain and verify<br>the<br>hashes<br>of<br>all<br>known<br>CP<br>and<br>RGR<br>imagery.<br>Government may look<br>into<br>these<br>for<br>appropriate<br>action
d)	to<br>ensure<br>expeditious<br>identification<br>and<br>removal;<br>The hashes so generated<br>must be under the custody<br>of the centralized cell<br>as stated hereinabove who<br>will steps to prosecute,<br>as per the law;	expeditiously.

	e)	A<br>reporting<br>mechanism<br>must be created at a<br>Central level, preferably<br>with the CBI (in view of<br>their role and special<br>access) to also receive<br>information of any CP/RGR<br>content being circulated
		in the social media or<br>any other platform over<br>the internet;
3.	f)	The cell would regularly<br>engage with represented<br>Companies and the NCMEC<br>for<br>updation<br>of<br>technology,<br>technical<br>support etc.
	g)	Technology<br>similar<br>to<br>Project Arachind crawler<br>technology be availed of,<br>for identifying India –<br>based CP and also to<br>adapt<br>the<br>same<br>for<br>identifying RGR content<br>online;
	h)	Content hosting platforms<br>(CHPs),<br>Search Engines<br>and GoI to work together<br>in<br>formulating process<br>for<br>proactively<br>verifying,<br>identifying<br>and initiating take down<br>of all CP/RGR content;
		Project CCPWC being a<br>general<br>project<br>to<br>alleviate crimes against<br>women and children, a<br>special focus sub-project<br>to be created within the<br>same<br>foe<br>eliminating<br>CP\RGR to undertake the<br>following:
	a)	The<br>Online<br>Portal<br>proposed to provide for<br>anonymous<br>reporting of<br>identified CP/RGR;	Government may take<br>action,<br>as<br>appropriate<br>expeditiously.

b)	A separate hotline to be<br>established for reporting<br>(with<br>the<br>option<br>for<br>caller<br>to<br>remain<br>anonymous) of identified<br>CP/RGR content;
c)	GoI<br>to<br>identify<br>and<br>authorize<br>specific<br>authority/entity<br>for<br>receiving Complaints of<br>CP/RGR online and for<br>initiating action thereon<br>within<br>specified<br>timelines; Such authority<br>to<br>have<br>immunity<br>and<br>permission<br>to<br>verify<br>CP/RGR content and to<br>initiate<br>take<br>downs:<br>authority to also have<br>specified processes for<br>immediately<br>intimating<br>respective<br>police<br>stations<br>for<br>registration of FIR and<br>for<br>initiation<br>of<br>prosecutions;
d)	A team to be set up for<br>immediately<br>verifying<br>such tips and to issue<br>directions to the service<br>providers/Intermediaries<br>for immediate removal of<br>such identified content;
e)	Government<br>of<br>India<br>team/authority<br>to also<br>immediately<br>send<br>communications<br>to<br>concerned police stations<br>for registration of FIR<br>and<br>initiation<br>of<br>prosecutions. In view of<br>the CBIs willingness to<br>take this responsibility<br>it is recommended that<br>matter be handled by CBI<br>and not by local police.
f)	Government of India to

		create tipper list of<br>NGOs.<br>Tips<br>from<br>such<br>sources to be acted upon<br>immediately<br>by<br>GoI<br>authority for take down<br>and<br>initiation<br>of<br>prosecution<br>without<br>delay;
4.		Creation<br>of<br>infrastructure<br>/Training/Awareness<br>building
	a)	Government of India to<br>form<br>regulations<br>for<br>reporting of identified<br>CP/RGR Imagery online.	Internet<br>companies<br>should<br>provide<br>technical support and<br>assist<br>in<br>capacity<br>building<br>to<br>the<br>relevant agencies in<br>India including law<br>enforcement and NGOs<br>through a series of<br>trainings on online<br>crime investigations,<br>and<br>trainings<br>on<br>using<br>relevant<br>Internet tools.
	b)	Government of India to<br>ensure<br>that<br>Search<br>Engines other than those<br>already implementing URL<br>blocks<br>for<br>identified<br>CP/RGR<br>content<br>to<br>initiate<br>similar<br>processes.	Internet<br>companies<br>should<br>consider<br>providing support to<br>Indian NGOs to help<br>bring<br>awareness<br>of<br>these issues.
	c)	Government of India or<br>its<br>designated<br>authority/NGOs<br>to<br>be<br>extended<br>permission/immunity<br>for<br>human<br>intervention<br>to<br>identify CP/RGR content;	Government of India<br>may<br>also<br>conduct<br>regular<br>training<br>programme as well as<br>relevant<br>Government<br>training<br>infrastructure<br>to<br>have<br>the<br>latest<br>technology<br>on<br>the<br>subject matter.
	d)	Government of India to<br>allocate<br>funds<br>for	Government of India<br>may also partner with

		training,<br>verification,	civil<br>society
		continuous monitoring and	organistaions,
		review<br>of<br>personnel	research<br>institutes
		involved in such human	to conduct programme
		intervention process for	as mentioned in c)
		identifying<br>CP/RGR	above.<br>Premier
		content, in line with	reserch<br>institutes
		those<br>adapted<br>by	like<br>IISc<br>must<br>be
		NCMEC/IWF;	encourages<br>and
			supported<br>to<br>have
			dedicated<br>research
			programme<br>to
			undertake<br>these
			studies.
	e)	GoI/CHPs/Search<br>Engines
		to involve in creation of
		awareness amongst users
		and<br>sensitization
		programs<br>and<br>capacity
		building initiatives for
		judiciary,<br>prosecutors
		and<br>law<br>enforcement
		authorities, to mitigate
		the<br>menace<br>of<br>CP/RGR
		dissemination;
	f)	GoI to set up processes
		for<br>expeditious
		initiation of prosecution
		against<br>users<br>for
		identified CP/RGR content
		reported by CHPs;
5.		The<br>solution<br>lies<br>in	The members of the
		proactively<br>identifying	Committee were of the
		rogue<br>sites<br>by<br>an	opinion<br>that<br>this
		independent agency which	could be a process
		can identify sites that	that<br>could<br>be
		contains<br>CP<br>and<br>RGR	considered<br>for
		content<br>and<br>blocking	suitable
		these sites. To prevent	implementation<br>in
		the<br>circulation<br>of	India.
		subject<br>imagery,
		Government can block any
		additional
		sites/applications<br>if
		they do not remove such
		contents of their own.
		MHA/designated LEA can be
		empowered<br>to<br>directly
		order Indian ISPs through

		DoT.
6.		The Government, through<br>an<br>appropriate<br>agency<br>setup a VPN to receive<br>the NCMEC reports for<br>uploading<br>of<br>CP<br>from<br>India. As conveyed by<br>NCMEC, there were more<br>than one hundred thousand<br>reports<br>belonging<br>to<br>India.<br>Law enforcement<br>agencies should initiate<br>legal<br>action<br>against<br>uploaders.	The Committee agreed<br>that this should be<br>looked<br>into<br>expeditiously.
7.		Removal of known CP/RGR<br>imagery: When imagery is<br>detected as CP/RGR, in<br>addition<br>to preventing<br>subsequent<br>uploads,<br>content hosting platforms<br>(CHP)<br>voluntarily<br>identify,<br>remove<br>and<br>prevent distribution of<br>previously<br>existing<br>content<br>on<br>their<br>platforms.	The Committee agreed<br>to the said proposal.
8.		There is need for greater<br>thrust and emphasis on<br>research & development of<br>Artificial<br>Intelligence<br>(AI)/Deep<br>Learning<br>(DL)/Machine<br>Learning<br>(ML) based techniques for<br>identifying<br>CP/RGR<br>content at the stage of<br>uploading to enable real<br>time<br>filtering.<br>Some<br>specific<br>suggestion in<br>this regard may include<br>as follows:	The<br>Committee<br>recognized<br>the<br>technologies<br>developed<br>by<br>represented companies<br>including<br>PhotoDNA,<br>Video<br>hashing<br>and<br>other techniques for<br>Imagery.<br>However<br>Committee<br>also<br>recognizes the need<br>for<br>much<br>greater<br>collaborative work in<br>the<br>subject<br>area<br>amongst<br>all
	a)	Traditional<br>DL/ML<br>techniques,<br>including<br>feature engineering based<br>techniques<br>and<br>other<br>Image<br>processing<br>techniques<br>to<br>be<br>developed for identifying	stakeholders.<br>The<br>Committee<br>also<br>feels<br>that<br>video<br>hashing<br>technique<br>should also mature as<br>has<br>been<br>done<br>for

		CP/RGR content at the<br>stage of uploading.	hashing<br>techniques<br>for<br>images.<br>Represented companies
	b)	CHPs to review existing<br>architecture to screen/<br>verify uploads for CP/RGR<br>content<br>using<br>such<br>AI/DL/ML<br>tools<br>after<br>suitable technologies are<br>developed.	should<br>further<br>voluntarily<br>collaborate<br>with<br>NCMEC to establish a<br>shared database of CP<br>video hashes similar<br>to the image hashes<br>database<br>that<br>is
	c)	AI/DL/ML<br>tools<br>to<br>be<br>tested real time (i.e.,<br>upon each upload).	already used by the<br>industry.
	d)	Research<br>into<br>above<br>alternatives<br>to<br>be<br>initiated in a time bound<br>manner.	The<br>committee<br>suggested<br>that<br>suitable research<br>be<br>initiated<br>for<br>further<br>development
	e)	CHPs to consider using<br>NCMEC for creating deep<br>learning/machine learning<br>tools,<br>subject<br>to<br>applicable laws, for CP<br>(to avail of the huge<br>data sets repository of<br>NCMEC).	of technologies for<br>identifying<br>CP/RGR<br>imagery.
	f)	Government<br>of<br>India,<br>along with CHPs to enage<br>services<br>of<br>suitable<br>experts<br>for developing<br>deep<br>learning/Machine<br>learning<br>tools<br>for<br>identifying RGR content.
9.		User<br>Authentication:<br>Create a mechanism where<br>users who seek to upload<br>an image/video, falling<br>within<br>the<br>subject<br>content,<br>using<br>the<br>pre-identified key words,<br>are<br>put<br>to<br>a<br>more<br>rigorous<br>verification<br>process which would have<br>them believe that they<br>would be traced.	The Committee decided<br>to drop this proposal<br>by consensus.

10		Content<br>removal<br>processes/<br>URL<br>de-indexing process for<br>identified<br>RGR imagery<br>should be as expeditious<br>as removal of CP Imagery.	The<br>represented<br>companies stated that<br>they are continuously<br>working on improving<br>processes for review<br>of content including<br>RGR that is reported<br>to<br>them.<br>The<br>Committee noted the<br>same.
11		Content<br>hosting<br>platforms, social media<br>platforms<br>and<br>search<br>engines<br>will<br>provide<br>links<br>for<br>reporting<br>CP/RGR<br>imagery,<br>as<br>a<br>specific category and the<br>same<br>to<br>be<br>more<br>prominently displayed on<br>their pages.	The<br>represented<br>companies stated that<br>they are continuously<br>working on improving<br>processes<br>for<br>reporting<br>content<br>including CP and RGR<br>that violates their<br>policies<br>or<br>applicable laws. The<br>Committee noted the<br>same.
12	a)	Create a mechanism to<br>ensure<br>that<br>when<br>CP<br>imagery<br>is identified,<br>the CHPs shall preserve<br>and<br>retain<br>such<br>information<br>of<br>the<br>uploader<br>including the<br>identified<br>content<br>to<br>assist law enforcement;	The<br>represented<br>companies are already<br>taking action in this<br>regard. The Committee<br>agrees to Part(a) of<br>proposal.
18		WhatsApp<br>should<br>make<br>further<br>improvement in<br>their reporting process<br>which would enable easier<br>reporting of contents in<br>the App while maintaining<br>the<br>integrity<br>of<br>the<br>contents<br>and<br>metadata<br>available on phone at the<br>time of reporting	There was consensus<br>in the Committee. The<br>Committee<br>recommends<br>that these efforts be<br>taken<br>up<br>at<br>the<br>earlies.
19		Compute the PhotoDNA has,<br>VideoHash<br>at<br>WhatsApp<br>Client on Mobile Handset<br>level, and transmit then<br>to<br>central<br>WhatsApp<br>server for matching with	The Committee agreed<br>not to pursue this<br>proposal.

We expect the parties including the Government of India to abide by the recommendations on which there is consensus and to try and implement them at the earliest.

We make it clear that any information that is based on or is pursuant to the proposals and recommendations to the Government of India will be kept confidential so as not to reveal the technology used by the participating service providers.

The Government of India will prepare a status report on implementation of the recommendations and place it before us in a sealed cover before the next date of hearing.

On the next date of hearing, we will deal with the proposals on which there is no consensus.

List the matter on 11th December, 2017 at 2.00 p.m.

It is made clear that on the next date of hearing also the proceedings will be held in-camera.

AR-CUM-PS COURT MASTER

(SANJAY KUMAR-I) (KAILASH CHANDER)