Madras High Court Notes Centre's SOP To Curtail Dissemination Of Non-Consensual Intimate Images, Closes Woman Lawyer's Plea

Justice M Dhandapani took note of the Standard Operating Procedure that was submitted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for curtailing the dissemination of Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery Content. Previously, the court had asked the Ministry to explain the steps to be taken by a victim girl when her intimate photos/videos are posted online without consent.

The court directed the petitioner to approach the concerned authorities under the SOP for removing any further images/videos of the lawyer that may be uploaded, and closed the plea.

The court was dealing with a petition filed by a young woman advocate seeking direction to the Ministry to act upon her representation and take all appropriate measures to block and remove her intimate photos and videos which were uploaded online by her former partner without consent. The court had previously asked MeiTy to take down all such photos and videos within 48 hours.

As per the court's order, the Central Government has now put in place the SOP providing guidance and procedure to be followed by an individual seeking to request an intermediary to remove or disable access of any information that violates their privacy. An individual can seek to remove contents which prima facie expose their private area, show the individual in full or partial nudity, show or depict the individual in any sexual act or conduct or any artificially morphed images of the individual.

As per the SOP, any individual may approach either the One Stop Centres (OSCs), Intermediaries, National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), Law Enforcement Agencies/ Police Stations to report their grievance.

One Stop Centre

On receiving a grievance complaint, the One Stop Centres shall assist the individual with the NCRP portal and provide legal and psychological counselling to the individual if requested. The OSC may further provide assistance with the filing of the complaint with the law enforcement agencies or the appropriate jurisdiction if requested by the individual, and may also assist the individual to get legal assistance through the District Legal Service Authority.

Intermediaries

Upon receiving a complaint from an individual or any person/entity/appropriate government or its agency on their behalf, the intermediaries should remove/disable access to the content within 24 hours of reporting by the individual, as prescribed in clause (b) sub rule (2) of Rule 3 of IT Rules, 2021, for violation of their community guidelines and shall also acknowledge the same to the complainant.

The Significant Social Media Intermediaries (SSMIs) should deploy crawler technology/other similar technology to identify the hashes collated with the reported NCII content and shall takedown similar content as soon as possible in other URLs/sources, for prevention of further uploads of such identified NCII content, as prescribed in sub-rule (4) of rule 4 of the IT Rules, 2021.

The intermediaries should also deindex any content from the search results and should inform the individual abou the removal of flagged content periodically.

National Cybercrime Reporting Portal

The NCRP can take action against non-consensual intimate images as per its SOP. Action can also be taken by issuing notices to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, read with clause (d) of sub-rule (1) of Rule 3 (of IT Rules, 2021 for removal of the flagged content as soon as possible but not beyond 24 hours.

Law Enforcement Agencies

The agencies should immediately report the flagged content on the NCRP and through the Sahyog portal, and register a complaint, if requested by the individual.

Further, the SOP also directs the Department of Telecommunication to coordinate with the internet service providers to block access to the flagged URLs/links, based upon the reference received from the appropriate government or its agency. The MEITY shall also coordinate with the intermediaries along with other stakeholders, for compliance in a timely manner.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr Abdu Kumar Rajaratnam, Senior Counsel for Mr. Rajagopal Vasudevan

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. A. Kumaraguru Special Panel Counsel, Mr E. Raj Thilak Additional Public Prosecutor for Mr. S. Balaji Govt. Advocate (Crl. Side)

Case Title: X v. Union of India

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 367

Case No: WP 25017 of 2025