WORLD CONSUMER DAY- Who will address Digital Consumers’ concern?

Today world consumer day is being celebrated with much fanfare. The theme this year is Digital Consumers and their protection. It must be appreciated that in this digitalised world the focus shift on protection of digital consumers from normal consumers is thought off.

Do we really understand the difference between normal consumers and digital consumers? For many the difference lies only in the way they make their purchases either online or offline. Rest of the duties and/or rights remains same for Digital or Physical consumers as well as sellers.

Many of us don’t go beyond this distinguishing feature. Have we ever considered beyond this? What is main purpose of celebrating World Consumer Day? It’s to remind all of us about our rights and duties of consumers and strengthen the consumer movement.

It is many a times said that consumer is the king. But in this digitalised world and use of technology and particularly in online shopping scenario is this position of consumer still as a King?

According to my observations there are many disadvantages to which our so called King is exposed to and no longer can he claim to be a King.

 For evaluation, we will consider some distinguishing features.

1)    In case of physical consumer making purchase at any shop, he is pretty sure about the location of same and jurisdiction of that shop. Does this hold true in case of digital consumers? How many digital shoppers know about exact location of online website they are visiting to? How many digital shoppers know about legal jurisdiction of that website, in case of certain mishap?

2)     In case of physical consumer, he can be somewhat sure about authenticity of the shop with which he is dealing with either due to its continual operation from same location or certifications from government’s various departments. Does this hold true for digital consumers who are visiting online shopping websites?

3)    Physical consumers at least know that there is Consumer Protection Act for their rights protection but what about protection of Digital Consumers? Are they covered under Consumer Protection Act?

4)    Under which laws the Digital consumers get protection?

5)    Which jurisdiction digital consumers can invoke if their consumer rights are breached?

How many digital consumers are really able to provide answers to above questions? Or how many agencies celebrating this World Consumer Day have thought it proper to give a serious thought on above raised questions and tried to find out answers for some of them so that we can really protect Digital Consumer?

It’s sad but true that very few of us consumers and consumer movement agencies have ignored these distinguishing threats to which ever growing digital consumer is being exposed to.

It’s high time that all agencies working for betterment of Digital Consumers should sit together and find certain proposals/suggestions for the safety of Digital Consumers.

I from my end have certain proposals for betterment of Digital Consumers.

1)    The Online Shopping websites should be strictly covered under some legal regime and there must be some registration procedure for the same.

2)    All the Online Websites should be compelled to accept payment after delivery and there must be some cooling time with banks to effect the funds transfer in shopping websites account.

3)    The Digital Consumers must be made aware about how to verify authenticity of shopping websites and what precautions they should observe while making online shopping.

4)    The responsive mechanism i.e. Police and Judiciary must be suitably upgraded to register and try matters in case of digital consumer disputes.

LESSCASH AWARENESS TIPS

                                      “To be or not to be”

This is the question we are trying to answer by every passing day. How safely to become a part of Less Cash economy or not to be a part of it but still perform our day to activities are the major concerns troubling us currently.

You select either of the option, the writing is on the wall that every Indian must become a part of cashless economy and hence it’s more appropriate that we learn some basics about security while utilizing these various instruments of cashless economy.

The need to learn security must be at forefront as we all are presently not comfortable with these instrumentalities of cashless transactions and have many doubts/apprehensions in our mind about functionalities of the same.

With lack of basic digital knowledge and cyber securities culture its very tricky situation and hence CYBER AWARENESS ORGANISATION appeals to follow following safety tips.

1)    Always use one particular number for commencing these cashless or electronic transactions.

2)    This number should not be used for any other purpose meaning it should not be your regular mobile number.

3)    Do not share your this mobile number with anyone except for these digital financial transactions.

4)    Be sure about the connectivity/ working of this number and make it a habit to check it after a standard interval of time.

5)    Don’t use your regular mobile number which is known to many for any of the e-wallet, online banking like sending OTP etc. activities.

6)    If you have synchronized existing mobile number presently to your digital instruments, try to change the same with some new number.

7)    Inculcate the habit of changing your PIN/Passwords on more regular basis like your habit of changing your underwear.

8)    Don’t link your e-wallets or similar instruments with your bank accounts.

9)    Always maintain two different bank accounts and one should be exclusively for digital transactions with no connection with other bank accounts.

10)                       Don’t provide standing instructions to your bank for topping up of e-wallets etc.

11)                       As far as possible use some alternative methods of transferring money to these e-wallets.

12)                       Don’t use open networks, unsecured public connections and free wi-fi to carry out your financial transactions.

13)                       Always be particular to verify the authenticity of the transaction with all the available minute details.

14)                       Don’t hesitate or delay to lodge your protest in case you observe any discrepancy in digital transaction.

15)                       Spread these security tips to 10 persons and become a part of this CYBER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN.

If you have more security tips please write to info@cyberorgindia.com or do call CYBER CRIME HELPLINE 09225109900.

Published by Advocate Mahendra Limaye President of Cyber Awareness Organisation for the cause of Public Awareness.

Moving Towards Cashless Economy with Digital Illiteracy!!!!!!!!!!

Recent move of Demonetisation of Rs.1000 and Rs.500 old currency notes and replacement of vacuum created by same with new Rs.500 and Rs.2000 currency notes is having various dimensions as per various economists. Every move has its pro’s and con’s. The Modi government must have examined all the viewpoints and taken the decision with due deliberations and discussions.

There can be various alternatives to this vacuum caused by shortfall of currency notes and one of them as suggested by various ministers and even PM himself is migrating towards CASHLESS ECONOMY, as adopted in various western countries.

Understanding Cashless Transactions in simple words is avoiding hard cash in most of our financial dealings and use of various electronic payment means like credit/debit cards or payment wallets etc. The full page advertisements released by most of the e-wallet companies in India, in all leading newspaper, is evident that these companies are going to be immensely benefited by such move of migration towards Cashless Economy.

The main risk about Cashless Transactions is lack of physical intervention at any check point involved in entire transaction. Most of the transactions just need system generated OTP as the only security mechanism, which can be very easily compromised. Normally this OTP is sent on the mobile phone registered with the service provider.

The other risk is trust deficiency in this mechanism as people are running from post to pillar for retrieval of their lost money in case of any such fraudulent transaction. As most of the mechanisms are handled by call centers and it’s very difficult to physically locate any of the support centers, people have trust deficiency in the same.

Various Ministers of the central government are making statements that even a school going kid is able to teach how to use these digital money apps to their parents but can a school going kid identify the inherent threats involved in these apps utilization or is he able to distinguish real caller or fake caller or genuine app or fake app? And is government relying on these school kids for imparting education of CASHLESS MONEY TRANSACTIONS to their digitally illiterate parents?

Technology is two edged sword and nobody can be 100% sure about using it safely. 70% People are using technology due to compulsion and only 30% are using the same voluntarily. These 30% consists of techno savvy and few from good educational qualifications. What about 70% of the masses who are using the Cashless modes mere by compulsion? It is proven fact that if anyone adopts anything voluntarily then he is bound to explore the same properly and the one who is forced to adopt the technology will be under constant strain and fear of using the same.

How these e-wallet companies function? What is there revenue model? What security guidelines and practices they follow? What complaint redress mechanism they have in place? Are there any possibilities of criminal activities through these Cashless Transactions? If yes, what is counter action plan for the same? There are many such questions which needs answers and these answers along with solutions must be put in place at once or else too much damage would be caused to millions of digital illiterates in the country.

For a country with highest number of digital illiterates migration to Cashless Economy is very bold and courageous move on the part of government. If proper education about digital safety and using these digital instruments with utmost care is not provided on war footing I foresee large adverse fallout of this step.

Cyber criminals have already made merry out of the digital illiteracy on part of online users and this is evident from NCRB statistics about exponential growth in cyber criminal activities in every passing year. This demonetisation will be an additional booster in these criminal activities and coupled with the organized cyber criminal activities and digital illiteracy there can be no stopping to the same if fast actions are not initiated by the Government.

It has been reported by a leading Mobile Wallet company very recently that due to concerns about privacy security of the users they were compelled to suspend launch of their POS App.

In October 2016 itself 32.14 Lakh debit cards of various public as well as private sector banks were reported to have been compromised by malware attack and thereby causing compromise of privacy of users. This incident speaks about the inherent dangers in Cashless Economy.

For moving towards cashless economy our at least 80% digital users must be digital literate and they must be properly trained and educated to handle these new avatar of monetary instrument. At the same time our laws must be more stringent and police must be on toes. The traditional mindset of police machinery which revolves around jurisdiction only must be modified immediately and the police should be more digitally equipped. How digitalised society can be regulated under digitalised police or judicial machinery?

Sooner we find the solutions to these concerns the better will be the future.

WHO ARE SILENT KILLERS OF MODIJI’S MISSION DIGITAL INDIA?

Every Indian is feeling conceited and buoyant with various revolutionary initiatives in Digital world launched by the present government under leadership of Prime Minister Hon. Narendra Modiji. All of us are certain that these seeds of Digital revolution may it be in form of Mission Digital India or Skill India program will certainly bear fruits in coming years. These seeds are sown with a futuristic view and young millennial generation of India is likely to enjoy theses fruits.

After a long time such a futuristic view and concrete steps for achieving the same have been initiated by government. Modiji need to be complimented for the same. Also all his team needs a huge round of applause for incessantly working for achieving the same.

But sadly it’s worthy to mention that all is not well in this Mission Digital India campaign. If we consider what could be outcome of the Mission Digital India after few years, I am bit afraid of predicting the same. Let me try to predict the same. 

Presently Digital population of Indian users may be around 25-30 million as per very conservative estimates and if 25% of them use it for banking as well as online shopping activities then we have roughly 10 million Indian population online. If considering they carry out monetary transactions worth Rs.500 each on weekly basis the amount involved is Rs.20, 000Million per month.

Now if Cyber Criminals target only 1% of these users, then also they are able to garner about 200 Million per month. Is it unbelievable?

Unfortunately none of us is prepared to accept the statistics presented above as it makes us terrifying about the whole scenario and these numbers does not have authenticity from any statistical wing of the government.

But even if the statistics may be doubted but it can not be denied that Cyber criminals are acting more vigorously in this niche domain of crimes.

And to top it all the role of Banks, Police, Educational Institutions and judiciary needs a careful scrutiny. To start with Bank, none of them is actively engaged in awareness about the cyber security and preventive tips. What limited they are doing is only lip service. The apex bank i.e. Reserve Bank of India is sitting on huge corpus meant for DEPOSITOR EDUCATION AND AWARENESS FUND since last few years. But none should question them!!!!!!

As reporting and investigation about such related crimes are concerned all is not too well. Our police machinery is not well educated to understand the magnitude and damaging capacity these crimes posses. They are yet to come out of traditional jurisdiction mind set and hence recurrently refuse to even register FIR, leave the hope for investigation of the same. Many a times it is observed that police are even not aware about provisions of Information Technology Act. Hence they register these crimes under IPC sections. Another difficulty with police is investigation as they don’t have well equipped Cyber Forensic Labs to analyse the modus operandi etc.

Fortunately Maharashtra Government under leadership of CM Devendra Fadanvisji has promised to set up Cyber Forensic Lab in every district place at Maharashtra. This will be a huge moral booster for Police in Maharashtra and people from Maharashtra can expect that situation will improve in coming days.

As regards to educational institutions less said is better as very few government schools and colleges have initiated such Cyber Awareness Training Programs and unless they are directed from top, they won’t initiate. In the case of CBSE institutions, CBSE has long issued directions for initiating few measures as regards Cyber Bullying etc. but whether these are functional needs a research.

Last ray of hope is Judiciary but here also all is not well!!!! The first trial court specially established to look after Civil Litigation under Cyber Contraventions is scarcely functional. Information Technology Secretary of each state is nominated to look into these matters but hardly any IT Secretary across all Indian states is serious about this additional mission given to them.

The appellate tribunal set up above Adjudicator is also non-functional since last 6 years as there is no appointment of the Chairperson of this CAT.

All other civil courts are barred from entertaining matters involving cyber contraventions and hence their jurisdiction can not be invoked.

So overall view of banking, educational, judicial and police mechanisms is not so encouraging currently and success of Mission Digital India can not be said to be in safe hands. What needs to be done is to identify these silent killers in this ambitious and much needed project and weed them out.

Unless Modiji act tough on these silent killers, in my view damage of the mission will be enormous and one of the finest projects will never take off the way it should be!!!!

Hence this appeal to PM Modiji for weeding out these damaging factors!!!!!