When fear drives trust in the unknown

It is a measure of the seriousness of digital arrests and other kinds of online fraud that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself took note of them in his latest Mann Ki Baat programme.

Digital arrests were as unreal and unknown even two years ago as ED arrests were five years ago, but now they have become a real-life menace, worthy of a cautionary note from the Prime Minister.

He noted that fraudsters impersonate the police, CBI, and at times RBI, and exert so much “psychological pressure on the victim that one gets scared.” According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the fraud is perpetrated not only from locations within the country but also from countries such as Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.

The ministry handles cyber crimes through the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) but the organisation’s name was used, at least once, to commit fraud.

According to some reports, citizens lost about Rs 120 crore to digital arrest frauds in the first quarter of this year. Apart from digital arrests, there are other types of fraud relating to KYC updation, bank accounts, stock trading, investments etc. Even educated and knowledgeable persons have become victims. A well-known industrialist was placed under digital arrest and duped of Rs seven crore recently.

The country has stepped into the digital world and many aspects of our lives are involved in it. Many people are overwhelmed by digital data and practices. Lack of awareness and self-doubt also make people vulnerable to fraudsters. In the case of situations such as digital arrest, fear of authority may be a factor that makes people respond unquestioningly and surrender to the demands of the fraudster who poses as the representative of a government agency.

In most cases, individual agency and independent thinking are lost in a milieu cleverly created to dupe and deceive. Most importantly, the fraudsters exploit the gullibility of people, their innate tendency to trust, and their discomfort with the idea of questioning what is told or presented to them. It is a mind game with money, and many people take it to be real and lose the game.

The National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal registered over seven lakh complaints in the first quarter. The actual number may be much more because many people would have chosen not to complain out of shame or the money they lost could not be legally accounted for.

As the Prime Minister said, people should not panic and give away their personal information and should stay calm. They should also report the matter to the cyber police. The cyber security agencies, meanwhile, should devise systems that ensure proactive responses and keep themselves ahead of the fraudsters.