CASE STUDY 3
CASE STUDY:FAKE IDENTITIES IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD WITH SPECIAL
REFERENCE TO ORKUT FAKE PROFILE CASE.
Using False Identities for deception is one of the most common things in the world and
the advent of the web has made it easier than ever before. The potential of social
networking sites and matrimonial sites has been misused by malicious users who
extract private and sensitive information of other users and create their fake profiles.
These fake profiles make threat and causes harm, distress to the victims by posting
obscene pictures or abuses or false and/or defamatory matter or personal details of
victims. The perpetrator can be anyone a friend or a colleague or employer or
employee etc. who has the personal information of the victim. Fake profiles of
celebrities are rampant. Many notable personalities like The President of India, The
Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, Noble laureate Amartya Sen have been
victims of such fake profiles. Such fake profiles damages reputation and ruin their
personal, social and professional relationships.
Information Technology act and Indian Penal Code got under various legal provision in
dealing with the fake profiles:
Section 66C of IT act deals with the offence of identity theft. If the person
dishonestly or fraudulently uses the photograph and other personal information of
the victim for creating a fake profile he is guilty of identity theft.
Section 469 of IPC deals with the objectionable content of fake profile as it would
harm the reputation and is punishable, thereby amounts to forgery.
Section 66A of IT Act deals with messages posted by the victim. If the recipient of
the messages has been misled into believing that the messages have been
posted by the victim then offender is sentenced with imprisonment up to three
years and fine.
If the offender cheats anyone by impersonating as the victim through the fake
profile, he is guilty of the offence of cheating by personation.
Fake profiles created by the offender can be deleted by filing a police complaint. Section
77B of the IT Act comes under the cognizable offences and police cannot refuse to
register an F.I.R.
Another remedy left is to report to the Social Networking site by giving the url of your
profile and the bogus profile. After that you have to report them as bogus to the
administrator of social networking website with a request to remove the objectionable
content.
Orkut Fake Profiles Case:
[Link] was a very popular online community that is owned and operated by Google.
The service was designed so that people get interacted to each other and maintain their
existing relationships. However due to various case reported of the misuse on Orkut,
Google decided to shut down the website in 2014.
Many Scenarios of Orkut Fake profiles case has been taken into account. Some of the
highlighted cases
The father of the girl approached to Cyber Cell of Delhi Polices Economic
Offences Wing after the girl received vulgar calls. The webpage addresses the
girl as the Sex Teacher and has obscene photographs and personal details
including her phone number, residential address. Phone calls start coming in the
name of the girl and when asked by police all referred to Orkut. The situation has
reached to the extent when at fortnight two strangers knocked at their door for
having sexual intercourse with a girl as it was requested by her in her Orkut fake
profile. The Police registered the case and investigations were on.
An air-hostess residing in Delhi and working for Kingfisher Airlines filed an
application in a city court to order the Delhi Police for registering a case against
Orkut after a vulgar profile was posted by someone. The fake profile had a pic of
her in her work uniform and her neighbors (an official at the Lok Sabha
Secretariat) telephone number listed for friendship. Her neighbors were flooded
with vulgar calls leading to a lot of harassment. 1
In 2006 Race Car Driver Rubens Barrichello filed a case for his fake profile on
orkut website. Brazilian court fined Orkut $500,000 for allowing a fake profile on
the site.
Conclusion
In todays world, Each and every individual is carrying out two identities a real and
a virtual one and there is no denying the fact that the virtual identity in digital world
for an individual has been at much peril as compared to his real life The dignity that
1 [Link]
an individual hold in real world is totally under the control of that individual but same
is not the case with the virtual world. As throughout this case study we have seen
that how perpetrator used to create fake profile of other individual and thereafter
causing harm, distress and other kind of threats to the victim. One should be more
cautious and totally beholds their privacy on his own. One should not open
unwarranted, unsolicited links often appears on the screen. As the privacy once
breaks down consequences of it were unimaginable.
