Hefty fees for child abuse portal resource leaves ISPs in trouble

To curb child sex abuse content on websites, an inter-ministerial committee of the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) had issued an order in May, asking service providers to adopt the resources of the Internet Watch Foundation to curb abuse content online. ISPs were to comply by July 31.

However, as the deadline approaches, what is creating a problem for the ISPs is the exorbitant fees that the IWF charges annually. The IWF maintains a global list of websites and URLs which contain child sex abuse material. But a subscribing ISP will have to pay anywhere between £75,000 to £90,000 per year to avail the list of URLs.

The order passed under section 79(2)(c) of the Information Technology Act 2000, said that the directive was an "immediate interim" arrangement till a central database is created in India.

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has already sent a letter to MEITY in this regard but to no avail. "There should have been an alternative that wouldn't cost the ISPs so much," said Rajesh Chharia, President, ISPAI. It is also learned that MEITY had, at one point, considered funding the exercise, but has now gone silent.

During the discussions, several ISPs were in favour of the hotline run by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), which maintains a list of such websites for no cost; all it requires from the ISPs is a dedicated computer and a person. When NCMEC receives any tip-off (called cyber tip) about abuse content, they work on providing their own investigative input and then pass it on to law enforcement agencies. If the accused is from a foreign country, NCMEC informs the host country via a virtual private network (VPN).