Govt reinforcing cyber security laws in digital transactions: Prasad
29 December, New Delhi
Union Minister for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad today said IT Ministry would look into the need to “reinforce” the Information Technology Act in order to further strengthen the cyber security in digital ecosystem in the country.
Addressing the mediapersons here, Mr Prasad said, “We are also telling all the banks that if they see any unusual cyber movement they should immediately report to CERT-In, our emergency response team. We have also emphasised the need for a cyber auditors.”
He reiterated that Government is reinforcing cyber laws to check cyber crimes in case of digital payment as Government is promoting the digital payment.
He added that he asked his Ministry to look into the subject if any changes are required in the law. Secretary of the Ministry has been asked to look into the security needs of digital transactions and to apprise about the changes required.
On the issue of increasing number of cyber fraud and problems being faced by the common people in digital transactions, Mr Prasad added that it should be looked into case wise. If there will any specific issue, they will look into it.
Replying to a question of problems faced by illiterate people in villages, he said the situation is not so grave as is being painted. People in villages are learning it and are doing it. It’s the rural population which has made the e-commerce and digitisation more popular. They are dealing in large numbers as far as e-commerce is concerned.
He said, “We must not underestimate the rural people as far as uses of digital devices are concerned. There are 105 crore mobile phones in the country and a large number is in villages. We are also training people for digital transactions and a large number of people has already been trained by the Ministry and its wings.”
He added that over one crore rural citizens have enrolled for digital payments under the `Digi Dhan Abhiyan’ programme within 20 days of the start of the digital financial literacy campaign, surpassing initial targets.Digital transactions in the country have also seen substantial jump across-the-board post demonetisation. The number of transactions through RuPay cards soared 445 percent between November 8 and December 26.
“Under the digital payment awareness programme being conducted through the Common Service Centres (CSC), we had set a target of reaching out to 80-lakh citizens, and 25-lakh merchants for training. We have surpassed that target and have trained 1.05 crore people in a matter of 20 days,” Prasad said.