The Supreme Court has said the Union government’s Sahyog Portal can provide the “foundation for a national database to detect and remove child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) across online platforms”.
It is also not lost on us that the portal, by virtue of having already onboarded a considerable number of intermediaries, may well be the natural foundation upon which a Hash & URL List Database could be built,” the Supreme Court said. The court added that it was aware that the Sahyog portal currently worked only as a common platform for routing individual reports and takedown notices, and so it acts on CSEAM only when each instance is reported. Material of unknown origin removed following a complaint must be reported within two hours of resolving the complaint.
“We acknowledge that the Sahyog Portal is, no doubt, a step in the right direction. The database must store only digital identifiers and URLs, not the material itself, and authorities must maintain audit records and correct erroneous entries. Platforms must also report removals made through their own detection mechanisms or following a court or government direction within two hours of removal. Database-match removals must feature in consolidated weekly reports.
As a result, removing material from one platform did not ensure its removal elsewhere, allowing it to continue circulating across the internet.
The observation comes as the portal itself faces legal challenges before the Supreme Court and several high courts and the court has called for “coordinated mechanisms to detect and remove” CSEAM from online platforms. However, the portal could do much more, the court said as long as the Union government “shared its vision” with that of the court’s expressed in the present order. To prevent wrongful takedowns, the court said each entry must undergo multiple levels of verification, with at least three trained human analysts independently confirming that the material constitutes CSEAM. The court said the existing system relied heavily on individual complaints and separate detection mechanisms maintained by platforms. The Court said intermediaries must report CSEAM to Indian law enforcement authorities, including the Special Juvenile Police Unit and local police, rather than merely reporting it to foreign organisations.
