ANJIM: Many Goans are falling prey to cyber frauds. The fraudsters are changing their modus operandi and invent new ways of defrauding Goans. Herald Media asked people, Do you think the government is doing enough to make people aware of cyber frauds?
Awareness is one part, but what is the government doing to arrest these types of crimes. This is very important. Now when you make a call suddenly you hear a voices, sometimes in Marathi, Hindi or English. Though they maybe creating awareness about cyber frauds, the audio is so bad, that everybody considers it as a disturbance. And I having heard it a 1000 times, I do not understand what it is. Another aspect is, if I am in a state of emergency vis-à-vis my health, and I want to contact somebody urgently and for 20 seconds I am kept on hold by this message and in those 20 seconds I can even collapse. This mode of awareness is incomprehensible and it is a disturbance, hence there has to be a mechanism where there is face to face interaction at the municipality, panchayat or ward level to create awareness.
Trajano D’Mello Political Commentator
Cyber frauds can be described as economic terrorism. But terrorists are external forces, this is internal terrorism, which is within the nation, with some citizens terrorising economically, other citizens. The government has taken certain steps to tackle cyber fraud. But the government as to increase the pace and the reach of cyber awareness. Every district should have a cyber cell. The laws should be amended to give stringent punishment for cyber frauds. The cyber crimes are controlled by the Information Technology Act. The punishment under this act should be of stringent nature. The punishment should be such that the fraudsters should be frightened to commit fraud. But these frauds seem to be incrase. The latest form of fraud seems to be targeting the senior citizens, where they are posing a police officer etc and extorting money. Such things have to be curbed.
Rui Ferreira Advocate
It’s a difficult question to answer. Even as I know about cyber frauds, I am not sure whether I am safe. Every day you hear about people being cheated and there are even suicides committed after people have been cheated in cyber frauds. Today one husband and wife have committed suicide in Karnataka. The government is trying to inform people to create awareness about cyber frauds. We get SMSs all the time, there are warning on social media. This is going on, but what are you doing to stop it. How do you find a mechanism to stop it and nab these fraudsters. After a long time I’m saying something good about the government, information-wise they are creating awareness. But the cyber fraud have not reduced.
Armando Gonsalves Founder, Goa ForGiving