New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday informed the Delhi High Court that it has advised all social networking sites including Google and Facebook to display on their websites the name and contact details of the grievance officer to deal with complaints from any user or victim.
"I say that in compliance of the order, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology had advised all industry associations to comply with the direction of this court," a central government official told a bench headed by Justice BD Ahmed.
Gulshan Rai, working as a Group Coordinator and Director General in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, filed an affidavit in theis regard on behalf of the Centre, after the court on August 23 last year had directed websites to display the name and contact details of grievance officers to deal with complaints, observing that "the social networking sites such as Facebook and Orkut cannot flout the law just because they are a foreign company".
He stated that the industry associations (of the sites) have also confirmed that they have advised their members to appoint and publish name of the grievance officers on their respective websites.
"The deponent has checked up and found that large number of intermediaries have complied with the orders of this court," the affidavit has stated. Rai said that the Centre has also "received various letters sent by the industry association and individual intermediaries".
The court has also sought the Centre's stand on the petitioner's allegation that Delhi Police, Indian Railways and others have created accounts on social networking sites despite government departments being barred from doing so under the law.
The court had said that the Information Technology (Intermediaries) Rules mandate that all social networking sites have to publish the name of grievance officer and his contact detail.
The court's direction came on a PIL filed by former BJP leader KN Govindacharya alleging that the websites have no mechanism for protection of children from online abuse. He had also submitted that government departments like Delhi Police and the Indian Railways are not entitled to create accounts on social networking sites.
The petitioner contended that as per the rules, the Grievance Officer of the concerned website has to send an acknowledgement within 36 hours of receipt of any complaint and has to act upon it within 30 days.
He had said that, at present, the websites neither disclose the name of grievance officer nor give his contact details, which is violative of law. However, Google had claimed that they have dedicated cell and also a team to deal with grievances 24 hours a day but the site has not given the name of any officer.
The public interest litigation had claimed that children below 18 years are entering an agreement with the social networking sites to open accounts which is against the Indian Majority Act, the Indian Contract Act and also the Information and Technology Act.
It had also sought recovery of taxes from the websites on their income from operations in India. Earlier, Facebook and Google had submitted affidavits in
the court detailing the protective measures that are available on their sites to ensure their product is not misused. They had said their statement of rights and other terms and conditions prohibits children below 13 years of age from registering an account and creating more than one personal account.
They had said that they also have strict policies in place to delete any objectionable or misleading content they come across on their sites.
The petitioner in his plea has alleged that due to non-verification of users, more than eight crore of Facebook users across the world were found to be "fake", which the website admitted before a US authority.
He said that government was not taking any action against the foreign companies which have their Indian operations.
Comments
0 comment