E-Paper
SOP asks intermediaries to remove non-consensual intimate images within 24 hours
The SoP lays out responsibilities for platforms and follows a Madras high court direction while hearing the plea of a woman lawyer whose private images surfaced on the internet
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) on Tuesday released a new Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) mandating intermediaries, including social media platforms, to remove or disable access to non-consensual intimate images (NCII) within 24 hours of receiving a complaint.
The SoP is aimed at curbing the spread of such content online. It lays out responsibilities for platforms and follows a Madras high court direction in October while hearing the plea of a woman lawyer whose private images repeatedly surfaced on the internet.
The SoP requires intermediaries to act on complaints from an individual, authorised representative, or government agency and to acknowledge the removal action to the complainant. It directs significant social media intermediaries to deploy crawlers or similar technologies to proactively detect and remove reuploads of the NCII.
Platforms would be required to generate and share hashes (unique digital fingerprints of reported images or videos) with the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) through the Sahyog Portal. The I4C will use these hashes to maintain a secure hash bank that prevents resurfacing of the same material.
The SOP asks intermediaries to periodically inform complainants about the removal status, including updates if the same content reappears online.
Search engines are required to de-index such content from search results. If the flagged material is hosted on other websites, intermediaries must alert the I4C through the Sahyog Portal for immediate follow-up and inform the affected individual.
Content delivery networks and Domain Name Registrars must render the flagged content inaccessible within 24 hours, either by deregistering the website hosting it or by directing the website owner to remove it. They must also act on any reuploaded versions appearing under new URLs within the same time frame.
The SoP sets up a coordination mechanism between intermediaries and government entities. The I4C, under the Union home ministry, will act as the central point for aggregating all NCII-related takedown requests and maintaining the hash bank.
The department of telecommunications will work with internet service providers to block flagged URLs. MeitY will coordinate with intermediaries to ensure compliance.
Indian Governance & Policy Project partner Dhruv Garg said the SoP will not really create any new legal regime but rather consolidate the existing obligations, mechanisms, and touchpoints for dealing with NCII. “The main thrust of these SoP should ideally be in publicising the remedies that the victims have in quickly managing the dissemination of NCII.”
Garg said the SOP will be useful if citizens are made aware of it. “Therefore, enough resources should be invested by the government and platforms in awareness campaigns around these SoPs.”
The SoP says intermediaries must align their community guidelines and terms of service with the provisions of the IT Rules, 2021, to ensure consistent enforcement.
The ministry described the SoP as an evolving document. “It is requested that the concerned stakeholders verify the latest version on MeitY website and ensure that the latest version is used at any given time.”
