Kolkata: Cop training to protect teens from cyber bullies

KOLKATA: To reinforce cyber security, especially in schools that have reported multiple cases of Zoombombing and cyber bullying during the pandemic, Kolkata Police has introduced the Cyber Sathi project to protect the city's teenagers and young adults online. According to Kolkata Police cyber cell, one person of a school - either a teacher or a non-teaching staffer - was being trained by KP cyber department.
The team has already initiated the project at two city schools, said DC (cyber) Praveen Prakash.
"Once trained, the individual will act as a nodal officer for the institution and the person will later train other important stakeholders of the institution. This is how the Kolkata Police will guide and enlighten the common man from the grassroots in terms of cyber security," said an officer from the detective department that will host the training.
Currently, the department is finalising the contents for Cyber Sathi. Cops hope that in the coming few months, this training will become the building block, through which basic mass awareness can be generated against the crimes that are committed online. Cops plan to award schools based on the implementation of the project. "If we can bring about some healthy competition, we are hoping to see a larger participation among children and teachers. We are waiting for this Covid phase to wear off before we announce the final phase of our plans," said an officer.
Last year, cyber experts and cops had asked teachers to follow basic rules to avoid intrusion by outsiders. They have repeated the same order this year as several schools now follow both online and offline modes of education.
As a first step, they advised, people should avoid sharing links to classes or webinars in a public domain. "It would be great to disable screen-sharing among students who are non-hosts. Once the teacher disables the remote-control function, file transferring, auto save chat features and annotations, it will strengthen the cybersecurity of the online class. The teacher must lock the virtual class against outsiders. Once the class starts, taking small cyber-hygiene precautions can help in making online classes far more secure from potential attacks by hackers," said an expert.
Cyber expert and special public prosecutor Bivas Chatterjee suggested the use of an ombudsman who is technically qualified to catch the perpetrator or stop the misuse of the online forum. "It is exactly the role we are expecting the nodal officers to play," said a cyber cell officer.
The West Bengal Government Teachers' Association welcomed the police move but wanted the training to cover the maximum number of schools in the shortest period.
"We had organized such a cyber awareness programme about four years ago. It is important that children who now depend on the internet more than ever before know its dangers too. But it is also important that schools - even those situated in the remote areas - are also covered. Similarly, we need to ensure that the training covers the entire gamut of digital crimes relevant to students," said Saugata Basu, general secretary of the organization.