CCTV and Delhi Metro are trending on Twitter as I write this. There was shock and surprise that the videos had managed to find their way to porn sites. I wasn’t. There is a dispute whether the clips are from CCTVs or mobiles. Whatever may be the source, the clips are available online.

I wasn’t surprised because it is not difficult to find Indian porn clips on the net. It is not confirmed who uploaded the Delhi Metro clips. May be it was the security guys or Delhi Metro employees, but what it shows is how lax we are with our data, especially sensitive data.

With almost all mobile phones coming with decent cameras, the problem is becoming bigger. According to retailers, memory cards are selling like hot cakes nowadays and many of those who buy them are school children. A dealer said the cards were used to ‘exchange’ porn pictures and clips.

Most mobile phones that come for service have ‘rich’ porn data. Most of the pictures and clips are stored in the phone itself. Many also forget to remove the memory cards before giving it for servicing.

The first thing many service centres do is to scan the device for pictures and videos and invariably, they are not disappointed. Students not only exchange material, but also ‘produce’ them – mostly “for fun”. Sadly, parents and school authorities are blissfully unaware of what the children are doing.

Parents rarely bother to look at their children’s mobile phones. A school recently banned students from bringing their mobiles to the farewell day function. Though the Principal did not explain to the students why she had banned it, the teachers were told that she had received information from the police that the origin of many of the videos were students themselves.

A report in a newspaper quoted the police saying that students filmed themselves in compromising positions and were not aware of the long-term impact of the videos and pictures. The content end up in social networking sites or in porn sites like the Delhi Metro videos did. Once this happens, controlling the further spread of the content is next to impossible.

There have been several reports of suicide - mostly by girls - after they realise that clips ‘featuring’ them are on porn sites. Though most of these clips are filmed without the knowledge of the girls, it is a fact that many girls willingly allow their boyfriends to shoot videos without realising that all it requires is a click for the videos to end up in porn sites.

One reason for the proliferation of such clips is that many parents and teachers are totally at sea about technology. Many of them cannot even handle a smartphone, leave alone having the expertise to look into the content of the memory cards. A typical response by a ‘proud’ parent is: “I am no good in technology, but my son is a genius. He even helps me with my mobile.”

Even a casual search on the net can throw up hundreds of videos and pictures shot by students and teenagers -- most of them done for fun, without realising that one day, they may end up in porn sites.

A mobile service centre guy said even adults were equally to blame. He said he was shocked to find video clips involving a man who had given the mobile for service. The service guy called the man and informed him about the video. “I wonder why they don’t delete them,” wondered the service technician. He said many smartphones even had credit card and bank information. One customer had even stored all credit card numbers with their pin and bank passwords “for easy access”.

Smartphone owners who lose their phones forget what they have lost are several applications that are “wallets” with money loaded, and many don’t even require a password or code to open. They are so careless that they don’t have any security application installed in their expensive phones. Even if a phone is lost, the entire content can be wiped remotely. Smartphone users are not even aware that their phones have the feature or that there are third party security applications with which they can secure their phones.

dinakaran.rengachary@thehindu.co.in

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