On 9th July 2020 a scammers operating from an unidentified location created a fake Facebook account of a Odisha cadre senior IPS officer and allegedly sought financial help through the fake account. A case has been registered under the IT act 2000 and police is investigating it.
Digital Identity
In today’s digital world everybody wants to have a presence in the digital ecosystem and that’s your digital identity that’s what identity that defines who you are want to personality is whether its just your brand whether its your social personality whether its your professional acumen.
But what happens if your digital identity is stolen?
That doesn’t happen to everybody but its capable of happening just about anybody on the street and that’s the reason why digital identity as a crime in terms of digital theft of identity is becoming increasingly more more relevant as time is passing by.
Now in case if you find that your digital identity is stolen what do you need to do?
What to do on digital identity theft
- The first biggest step is to know that your digital identity has been stolen.
- Once you know that this is being done clearly you also need to know in India stealing of digital identity or theft of digital identity is a distinct cybercrime under Section 66C of the Indian Information Technology Act 2000.
Punishment on Identity theft cyber crime in India.
Identity theft is punishable with three years imprisonment as well to also fine of 1Lac Rs.
Clearly ones you find that your digital identity has been stolen, or has been misused you need to immediately report this to Law Enforcement Agencies.
Where to report Identity theft cyber crime in India.
- You can go to your local police station and report about this identity theft.
- You can also go to the cyber crime cells in your respective cities and report about such identity theft and that duty-bound to register a case on your complaint.
- In case you find that you reported and still there is some danger you have still some further remedies there is an Indians Statutory Authority, known as the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or I-SERT, has been made the Nodal Agency for cyber security in India.
Under the Information Technology Act 2000 you can also report about your identity theft to the I-SERT or Indian Computer Emergency Response Team because this is the kind of a cyber security breach and that’s the kind of work in which I-SERT is dedicatedly to work on such complaint.
Further if you’re doing any internet transactions you must instantaneously inform or notify all the relevant service providers in this regards.
If financial identity theft happens
So whether its your bank from where you getting your banking transactions or whether it is any other credit or debit card institution which is providing you the credit or debit cards for purposes of doing online transactions you need to instantaneously notify them there has been a theft of your digital identity or identity theft and that the need to take all appropriate steps to ensure that further damage could not or should not happen to the identity theft that’s taken place.
Finally you’ll also have to be very very careful when you next go ahead and try to make another digital identity.
As far as possible if you can actually know the originating internet protocol address of the relevant computer from where your identity has been stolen that becomes a huge step for the law enforcement for the purposes of determining who you are identity thief is.
In case if the said IP address is located outside the territorial boundaries of the country then they could be challenges of jurisdiction. But the next time you create your new digital identity make sure that you please keep your digital identity as secure as you would keep your physical world belongings.
Precautions for identity theft cyber crime in India
- As far as possible do not use a digital identity on cyber cafe
- Public computer systems or Wi-Fi because there could be potentially a large amount of malware or spyware
- Ensure your own computer is well secure have a good anti-virus program that a large number of free anti-virus programs available on the Internet.
- Have a good the exercise for sanitising your system per-say.
- Have a good firewall it’s going to be even more helpful.
Bottom line is your digital identity is not permanent it is requiring constant attention . Follow all necessary steps to protect it is security and inherent capability and for that you alone are going to be responsible. So the next time you deal with your digital identity be careful it’s not a light thing to deal with it’s one thing that can change a lifetime.
