Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Rules amended to make intermediaries accountable and respect rights guaranteed to users under the Constitution of India
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (“MEITY”) has notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022 (“2022 Amendment”) to further amend the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“Principal Rules”).
Key Highlights:
1. Intermediary is required to prominently publish on its website, mobile based application or both (as the case may be), the rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement in English or any language specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution for access or usage of its computer resource by any person in the language of his choice and ensure compliance of the same;
2. Requirement to periodically (at least once in a year), inform its users of the rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement or any change in the rules and regulations, privacy policy or user agreement in English or any language specified in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution in the language of his choice;
3. Intermediary is required to take all reasonable measures to ensure accessibility of its services to users along with reasonable expectation of due diligence, privacy and transparency. Further, the intermediary needs to ensure that they respect all the rights accorded to the citizens under the Constitution, including Articles 14, 19 and 21;
4. Intermediary is required to acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve such complaint within a period of 15 days from the date of receipt;
5. Further, with respect to the Grievance redressal mechanism of an intermediary, the 2022 Amendment prescribes that for complaints in the nature of request for removal of information or communication link relating to the following, the intermediary shall ensure that the same is acted upon as expeditiously as possible and resolved within 72 hours of reporting:
• is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another’s privacy including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion or caste with the intent to incite violence;
• is harmful to child;
• deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature;
• impersonates another person;
• threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence, or prevents investigation of any offence, or is insulting other nation;
• contains software virus or any other computer code, file or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource.
6. Persons aggrieved by the decision of the Grievance Officer may prefer an appeal to a Grievance Appellate Committee (set up by the Central Government) within a period of thirty (30) days from the receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer;
7. The Grievance Appellate Committee will deal with such appeal expeditiously and endeavour to resolve the appeal within thirty calendar days from the date of receipt of the appeal.
A copy of the Notification is linked below for ease of reference.
