Digital & Cyber Rights

Every minute matters — reporting speed directly affects whether the money can be recovered.

Banks and payment systems can sometimes freeze or reverse a fraudulent transfer if reported within a golden window, coordinated through the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting system.

1. Call 1930 (national cyber fraud helpline) immediately — don't wait.
2. File a detailed complaint on cybercrime.gov.in with transaction IDs, screenshots, and account details.
3. Inform your bank directly too, to flag or freeze the receiving account if possible.
4. File a police complaint/FIR for the record and any offline follow-up.

Stalking, doxxing, or non-consensual intimate imagery.

Covered by BNS provisions (stalking, defamation, insult to modesty), IT Act Sec. 66E (privacy violation) and Sec. 67/67A (obscene/sexually explicit content). Platforms are required under the IT Rules, 2021 to act on valid complaints, including a fast-track for non-consensual intimate imagery.

1. Preserve all evidence — screenshots, URLs, timestamps — before reporting or blocking.
2. Report directly to the platform (most have a dedicated non-consensual content reporting flow).
3. File on cybercrime.gov.in, which has a specific fast-track category for this.
4. File a police complaint at the local Cyber Cell.

Your data rights are now backed by a dedicated law, not just a company's privacy policy.

The DPDP Act, 2023 gives you the right to access, correct, and request erasure of your personal data held by a company ('Data Fiduciary'), and requires a Grievance Officer to handle such requests within a defined timeframe.

1. Send a written request to the company's Grievance Officer/Data Protection Officer, listed in their privacy policy.
2. If unresolved, escalate to the Data Protection Board of India for your case category — check current rollout status, as implementation has been phased.
3. For financial data, RBI/SEBI-regulated entities also have their own sector-specific grievance routes.

Prevention and device recovery both have dedicated national tools.

1. Report suspicious apps, websites, or numbers on cybercrime.gov.in or the Chakshu facility on the Sanchar Saathi platform.
2. For a lost or stolen phone, use the CEIR (Central Equipment Identity Register) portal to block or track your device by IMEI.

A fast-growing scam: fraudsters impersonate law enforcement over a video call, claim you're implicated in a crime (often a fake courier/money-laundering case), and pressure you to stay on camera and transfer money to "verify your identity" or avoid arrest.

"Digital arrest" has no basis in Indian law whatsoever — no agency can arrest, detain, or hold you via a video call, full stop. Real police always require physical presence and due process. The scam itself is prosecuted under BNS Sec. 318 (cheating), BNS Sec. 308 (extortion), and BNS Sec. 336 (forgery, for any fake warrant/order shown to you).

1. There is no such thing as a "digital arrest" — hang up or close the call immediately. No genuine agency conducts arrests over video.
2. Do not transfer any money, and don't share OTPs, bank details, or documents on the call.
3. Report immediately at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930 — India's cybercrime authority (I4C) actively tracks and blocks the accounts/IDs used in these scams.
4. If you already transferred money, treat it exactly like a financial fraud case: report within the golden window (see the UPI/online fraud scenario above).

A sudden, unexplained loss of mobile signal can mean someone tricked your telecom provider into transferring your number to a SIM they control — the first step to hijacking your OTP-protected bank and email accounts.

TRAI's 2024 Mobile Number Portability rules now require a mandatory 7-day lock before a replacement SIM can be ported, and a 24-hour SMS/notice window for SIM replacement requests, specifically to slow down this kind of fraud.

1. Call your telecom operator's helpline immediately (from another phone) to check if a SIM swap/replacement was requested, and block it if it wasn't you.
2. Call 1909 (TRAI) to report and help block the compromised number.
3. Immediately freeze or inform your bank — a hijacked number can be used to intercept OTPs and reset banking app passwords.
4. Change passwords on your email and key accounts from a different, secure device.
5. File a complaint at cybercrime.gov.in or with your local Cyber Cell — this is a criminal offence, not just a telecom service issue.