Cyber crime an important aspect of national security, says Amit Shah

The I4C, established in 2018, is a department under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) tasked with establishing a national-level coordination centre to address cybercrime-related issues. Shah also inaugurated four I4C platforms — Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC), the ‘Samanvaya’ platform, a Cyber Commandos programme and a Suspect Registry.

“CFMC was a vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi… Along with this, Cyber Commando, Samanvay platform and Suspect Registry have also been inaugurated today. In a vast country like India, having a separate Cyber Suspect Registry for each state would not serve any purpose because states have their own boundaries but cyber criminals have no boundaries. It was the need of the hour to create a Suspect Registry at the national level and connect states with it to create a common platform to fight cyber crime,” Shah said.

According to an official, in the Suspect Registry system, the I4C will share a list of all the repeat offenders in their server, which can be accessed by police personnel of any state and also by the bank officials before opening bank accounts.

Shah said the government is also planning to train and prepare 5,000 cyber commandos over the next five years. “The number of internet users in the country was 25 crore on March 31, 2014, which is now 95 crore on March 31, 2024… Due to the Digital India initiative, many facilities have become online in the country. 35 crore Jan Dhan accounts, 36 crore Rupay debit cards… 46% of the world’s digital transaction volume is taking place in India today. When digital accounts and digital transactions increase, the need for protection from digital fraud also increases a lot,” he said.