Digital Arrest: Why do we fear Khaki? Who is responsible? What should be a way out?

Ever since the COVID-19 lockdown, Zee Business has been reporting on the rise of digital arrest frauds as an undercurrent of exploitation and fear. We pointed at the dark psychology of these schemes, where con artists masqueraded as traffic police and leveraged the threat of arrest to pressure and intimidate, in our early coverage.

Admission of such scams by no less a person than Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself in his Mann Ki Baat speech is thus a much-needed response, but there is more to the issue than creating awareness; action and legislation, along with reform, to rid the public of their deep-seated mistrust of the very organisations that are supposed to protect them.

Why are we afraid of the Police?

Why do we fear law enforcement?

Why do we think the police, CBI, or ED will ask for money or ruin their career if they threaten to arrest them?

Is there an underlying distrust born of many years of experience with strong-arm tactics, or is it simply that we are conscious of the enormous powers these agencies possess?

Several studies and investigations repeatedly point out that there is huge distrust in the police.

The Status of Policing in India Report (Common Cause–CSDS 2018) revealed that two out of five people in India fear the police.

It is this collective anxiety that forms the perfect breeding ground for scammers.

Threats, intimidation, and undue pressure are still standard page and playbook tools in too many bureaus, despite our agencies' tirelessness to keep the peace.

The ease with which people get conned by digital arrest fraud says volumes about what they think of our law enforcement.

A gap between protection and policy -

The most important question we have now is: How could scammers appear to have access to all of our personal information, including our daily schedules, working hours, bank account details, transaction history, contacts with the police, and even family information?

There is undoubtedly a serious shortcoming in the protection of data.

Therefore, who is responsible for this worrying breach?

Though passed by Parliament, the Digital Protection Act of India has not been brought into force as yet.

This is in effect legislative paralysis, which is leaving citizens quite vulnerable.

Remarks Virag Gupta, a senior lawyer and cyber law expert, "A Digital Protection Act needs to be more than ink and paper; while the Data Protection Law has been enacted by Parliament, the towing regulations remain to be passed. This delay has resulted in the dangerous emergence of an auction of in-person details that enables cyber criminals to commit digital scams with impunity. There is an urgent requirement to create and implement stringent regulations to prevent the sale and auctioning of information by digital companies."

Further, Gupta insists, the 1930 helpline must be integrated with the RBI for an efficient system of immediate grievance redress and protection of assets.

On these lines, Gupta also comments, "While cyber and IT issues, according to the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, are within the Central government's domain, policing is a state subject. There must be a transfer of cyber-related crimes to the concurrent list, which would extend police powers and their jurisdiction to carry out proper investigations and bring organised crime into the courts."

The scammer's playbook and its psychological roots -

Digital arrest scams prey on more than financial vulnerability; it is an exploitation of psychological fear.

Fraudsters posing as law enforcement agencies terrorise targets into compliance.

This echoes that very terror people carry for such agencies.

This shows that scammers adopt this avatar instead of simply posing as debt collectors or markers; they know in the public psyche a call from a 'police officer' or 'CBI official' is enough to bypass all skepticism.

Not just India is concerned.

Global media reports on the growing scams around the world; this surely is an alarming trend.

Societies harbouring mistrust towards law enforcement agencies are easy targets for such frauds.

Where countries like India fear a majority of people due to the power and secrecy of agencies like the ED and CBI, it serves as a perfect breeding ground for digital arrest scams.

Why mistrust persists-and how to address it -

This fear has been rooted in a somewhat dark history.

Law enforcement agencies have time and again acted in violation of the law, using strong-arm tactics and intimidation to achieve aims not necessarily directed at serving the interests of the general public.

Wrongful detentions and harassment have defaced their image and made the citizens distrust them rather than look upon them as protectors.

It thereby becomes very personal, and this perception predisposes people further toward trusting the threats that scammers make.

In response, government agencies must reassure them through transparency and accountability.

Another important method is spreading awareness among citizens, as PM Modi did.

Digital literacy campaigns are meant to equip people to identify such fraud, and it is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to ensure people know they will never call anyone to demand money.

Beyond Mann Ki Baat -

At a time when the incidence of digital scams is spiralling out of control, comments by Prime Minister Modi in Mann Ki Baat were welcome.

If such comments are not anchored in legislation to enact laws, remembering critical issues will be reduced to rhetorical speaking rather than actionable policy-making.

Full implementation of the Digital Protection Act, improvisation, and reform of other rules—and most importantly, bringing the gap between law enforcement and the public it is supposed to serve—have begun.

This is India's time and era, an opportunity none like before, which has brought along not only a surge in digital crime but also the fear and mistrust that allow the crime to thrive.

If we are earnest in saving our citizens from these frauds, then some inconvenient questions will have to be asked: Why are we afraid of this khaki uniform?

Why do the agencies entrusted for protection emerge as an impending threat?

When will criminals fear the police more than they do us, as citizens?

When will these stops start unloading our data and profiling every digital step we make?

It is, in fact, the agents of enforcement who need to also take unto themselves PM Modi's mantra:Ruko, Socho And Action Lo.