Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday asked an inter-ministerial committee to examine expeditiously, in consultation with all stakeholders, the measures to curb cybercrime in financial sector frauds vis-a-vis use of credit/debit cards and e-wallets.

The Minister presided over a high-level meeting to review progress made after an earlier meeting on the issue, wherein all governmental agencies and representatives of states concerned were present.

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The Minister was told at the meeting held in his North Block office that in pursuance of decisions taken by him in the September 19 meeting, the Inter Ministerial Committee on Phone Frauds (IMCPF) had been constituted in the Home Ministry on September 28.

The IMCPF — under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry and members from other stakeholder organisations, namely the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Department of Financial Services, Department of Telecommunication, Reserve Bank of India and law enforcement agencies — held its first meeting on October 24 and discussed various kinds of phone frauds in India and steps to be taken by stakeholder organisations to curb the menace.

Due to increased digital payments, the need to create a uniform monitoring and law enforcement mechanism was the need of the hour. The broad contours of the matter are being worked out in the Home Ministry.

Analysis of huge data by involving Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi for identification of perpetrators of phone frauds to prevent duplication across e-wallets was said to be part of the meeting’s agenda along with providing additional information through SMSes or email alerts to customers from banks or e-wallet companies as part of customer alert mechanism.

Legal aspects involved in making this metadata archival possible by way of sharing of data among different government and private agencies was also discussed.

Integration and inclusion of Know Your Customer norms to keep an eye on digital slush funds was also on the agenda.

Rajnath Singh was told about measures taken by the Jharkhand Police to crack down on perpetrators of phone frauds, which had resulted in considerable fall in such crime.