Recent Trends in Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) distribution in Indian Cyberspace

Abstract

The emergence and evolution of social media and technology poses challenges in the prevention of child sexual exploitation and abuse. This issue is not successfully addressed by the existing techno-legal apparatus and is posing risks to the children. In India, CSAM files are illegal and constitute an offense under Section 67(B), IT Act 2000. The technology has also made available various tools and techniques, to the predators who are always ready to groom and exploit teenagers & circulate their indecent images / videos. This research work has been carried out to assess a qualitative estimate of the quantum of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) circulated in Indian Cyberspace using peer-to-peer technology. Although CSAM is legally banned, many unique IP addresses were found to be distributing a total of 27,00,08,502 disturbing material depicting the sexual abuse of children distributed over 7 torrents spreading over 29 States and 5 Union Territories.