Abstract
Digitalization and ease of financial transactions have spurted a ubiquitous rise in cybercrimes. In 2021, 60.8 per cent of reported cybercrime cases registered were for the motive of fraud. To tackle mounting digital financial fraud complaints, the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal was created by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre and the Ministry of Home Affairs. The portal is an integrated platform where stakeholders, such as law enforcement agencies, banks, financial intermediaries and others, are connected to prevent the outflow of money from the system, as money once out of the system becomes untraceable and non-retrievable. The portal enables requests to be sent to identified stakeholders by law enforcement authorities to block financial transactions or create a lien on the disputed money while the money is with them.
The article has been written against the backdrop of Herbert Packer’s two models of the criminal process, describing two competing goals that underlie criminal legal regimes: the crime-control model and the due process model. As crime is committed in cyberspace and technology is developed to counter it, often the urgency of resolving the crime and the opacity surrounding the technology, blur the lines of permissible and impermissible actions. The article argues that this technical solution created for tackling digital financial frauds is far from perfect, and, at best, a quick fix while larger, looming questions remain unanswered. Through a series of high court cases, the article brings forth how due process requirements are often sidelined in favour of the more immediate goal of crime control in the guise of this PoliceTech, even as questions of the efficiency of the tech remain unaddressed. Nonetheless, the article recommends reforms to ensure the safe deployment of PoliceTech in India, minimize public harm and create accountability for misuse of harms arising from technology.
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