National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) and Digital Banking
National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP) is a web portal facilitating Indian citizens to report cyber crimes. The portal has provisions for reporting various types of cyber crimes falling under two categories, (a) crimes against children and women and (b) other cyber crimes like online financial frauds, mobile crimes, cryptocurrency crimes, etc.
This article provides an overview of NCCRP with a focus on reporting financial/online frauds.
Along with the rapid progress witnessed in India during the last few years in segments like internet penetration, digitization, mobile phone adoption, digital banking, social media, etc, cyber crimes and financial frauds have also been exhibiting increasing trends. The government of India has been taking various measures to curb the menace of cyber crimes with the active involvement of Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) like State Police Departments, Enforcement Directorate, CBI, NCB, etc.
What is National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP)?
NCCRP is a web portal launched by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs. This portal enables citizens to report cyber crimes immediately upon detection, irrespective of the jurisdiction of the commitment of the crime. The portal facilitates victims/complainants to report cybercrime complaints online. The complaints reported through the NCCRP portal are immediately pas on to the police team.
What is the process for reporting a cyber crime through National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP)?
The victims have the option of complaining to the local police station in whose jurisdiction the crime is committed. NCCRP is an additional mechanism for reporting crime. The complaint registration with NCCRP can be carried out by
i. Visiting the NCCRP website: https://cybercrime.gov.in or
ii. Dialing NCCRP toll-free no: 1930. When dialed in this number, the complaint will be attended to by the respective State Police Department of the state from where the call is initiated.
On registration of the complaint with NCCRP, the complaint will receive a 14-digit reference number.
What happens to the complaint on financial fraud registered with National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP)?
a.The complaint gets automatically assigned to the state police department for investigation.
b.The details of the complaint and transaction details are shared with the victim's bank.
c.The victim’s bank shall verify the records and update the details of the transaction along with details of the beneficiary like name, beneficiary bank, and account number. On completion of the process, the case gets assigned to the bank of the beneficiary through the portal.
d.If the fund is transferred from the recipient’s account, the bank shall update the details of the account to which the transfer has effected (secondary beneficiary) and the complaint is routed to the next bank. In this manner, the routing of funds is tracked.
e.The accounts are subjected to freeze/ lien marking by the Bank, as instructed by the respective law enforcement agencies. Banks are bound to obey the instructions of law-enforcing authorities in this regard, even if the branch and the agency are in two different locations/ states.
f.Banks may report to the customer about the debit freezing/lien marking with the essential details such as reference number, name and address of the law enforcement agency, case/ FIR number, etc., so that the customer who is not involved in the chain may take up with the law enforcement agency for review of the decision.
