UP Police will monitor your Internet history searches for porn. Will it reduce crimes against women?
As the country celebrated Valentine's Day weekend, Uttar Pradesh police devised a new tactic to keep women safe - by keeping an eye on pornographic research history.
Uttar Pradesh Police said on Saturday they hired a company to "keep tabs" on people's internet search data to monitor those looking for pornographic content. Intended to fight crimes against women, a new team called "UP Women Powerline 1090" has been set up and will be alerted if a person searches for pornographic material on the Internet.
What does it mean?
UP Police hired a company named "Oomuph" to study the Internet scans. The company has been tasked with keeping tabs on what is searched on the internet through data. If a person sees pornography, the analysis team will get the information.
Those looking for pornography will receive an alert message and the information will also be recorded with the police. This decision aims to help the database of information of the police in case of crimes in a certain locality.
While UP Police's commitment to women's safety is commendable, it raises two questions.
What about women who watch porn?
It may (still) come as a surprise to many in India, but women watch porn. But they do. In 2017, porn website Pornhub revealed that India ranked fourth in terms of viewership and a large number of those viewers were female. In fact, Indian women beat the world average when it comes to porn viewing. Pornhub found that more women in India watch porn than in countries like the US, Canada and the UK, India Today reported. The following year, Pornhub reported by 2017, female porn viewers had increased by 129%. With UP Police monitoring people's porn search history in the name of protecting women, it wouldn't be surprising if many of the alerts they receive are triggered by women.
Does a porn ban deter sex crimes?
While the Indian government has chosen to ban or regulate pornography to prevent sex crimes, studies around the world have shown that legalizing pornography does not directly lead to an increase in rape or sexual assault. A 2010 study conducted in the case in the Czech Republic found that "as seen everywhere else studied (Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sweden, United States), that rape and other sexual crimes have not increased following the legalization and wide availability of pornography”. The study went on to make the controversial point that the incidence of child sexual abuse has declined since 1989, the same time child pornography became more readily available. A similar phenomenon has been observed in Japan and Denmark.
In 2018, the Uttarakhand High Court asked the Center to ban pornographic websites in India, citing a gang rape case in which four boys raped a Grade 10 student. It was later discovered that the boys had watched pornographic content prior to the incident. Following the order, the Center ordered ISPs to ban 827 pornographic websites.
It was not the first time that porn has been blamed for the increase in crime in India. In 2015, the CBI while investigate a series of cases where the defendants shared videos of themselves committing rape with their friends, which made the images and videos go viral. The CBI in its report said the easy availability of pornography was one of the reasons for the increase in rape cases.
Despite several measures to ban porn, crimes against women have not stopped. Several websites like Pornhub continue to be banned by major ISPs in India.
