Fake profile of President posted by imposter

The imposter have not even spared the first citizen of India and made a fake profile in the name of the Hon’ble President her Excellency Pratibha Devi Sing Patil. The fake profiles in the social networking websites are doing the rounds in Face book and Orkut and one can find many fake profiles in the name of celebrities, even one can find 10-15 fake profiles in the name of single celebrity.

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Recently, a complaint has been received from the Additional Comptroller, President Household, President Secretariat who made a complaint regarding the four fake profiles created in the name of Hon’ble President in the famous social networking site, “FACE BOOK”. The said complaint reportedly stated that president house has nothing to do with the facebook and the said fake profile is misleading the general public. The First Information Report Under Sections 469 IPC and 66A Information Technology Act, 2000 was registered based on the said complaint at the police station, Economic Offences Wing, the elite wing of Delhi Police which specializes in investigating economic crimes including cyber offences. The investigation is still going on in the said FIR and culprits are yet to be arrested. Similar incident was witnessed on cyber space when the fake profile of President of President of Guyana Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo appeared on Facebook. The Annual Threat Report of Aladdin states that the potential damage of these fake profiles can be devastating, both on the personal level by creating difficulties in employment, ruining social and professional connections, damaging reputations; as well as on a financial level, such as stealing customers, corporate data etc.

It has been found that the social networking sites are being exploited by the spammers who use fake profiles to spread spam or viruses. Further, the fake profiles also poses threat to data security, as is revealed from the study conducted by one Thomas Ryan from a security company who created fake profile and befriended persons from US Military, intelligence agencies some of whom shared personal and professional information which could have compromised corporate and possibly even national security.

The provisions of Information Technology Act and Indian Penal Code do have some provisions to deal with menace posed by fake profiles on Social networking sites. They are particularly, Section 66, 66A, 66C, 66D, 67, 67A & 67 B of the Information Technology Act and Section 469 and 499/500 IPC is attracted. The victim of the fake profile can lodge FIR with local police under the said appropriate provisions of IT Act and IPC. They should also save the screen shots of such fake profiles for the evidentiary purposes.

Neeraj Aarora

Advocate