Plea in SC to stop online virtual classes until guidelines are framed in view of cyber-attack threats, unequal access for poor students

A plea moved in the Supreme Court seeks directions to the Centre to issue comprehensive guidelines with respect to online virtual classes through video conferencing for children as "there could be a threat to them (of being) exposed to obnoxious materials available on the internet.".The petition filed by Dr Nand Kishore Garg, through Advocate Shashank Deo Sudhi seeks orders from the top court so that online classes can be immediately discontinued until the formulation of comprehensive guidelines for the hosting of online classes in a completely encrypted and safeguarded manner..Raising concern that there is a growing risk of children falling prey to cyber predators, the plea states that the current lockdown induced online classes have the potential to expose them to pornographic content or predatory cyber hackers..Further, the plea avers that appropriate directions should be given to the Central Government, the HRD Ministry and the CBSE so that robust cyber applications are developed on the pattern of the online exams being conducted by various agencies with specified software, which does not allow any other cyber application or the possibility of pop ups in any other window during the course of online examination..The plea also urges for the Court to direct the respondents, including the Centre, to evolve a proper mechanism to make sure that children of economically weaker sections of the society have access to these classes. by ensuring computer devices for them. The petitioner highlights that many children from poorer sections of society have been completely discriminated when it comes to accessing online learning during the lockdown after schools closed completely..The petitioner avers that the sudden prevalence of online classes through video conferencing and other online applications is discriminatory to the tens of millions of EWS children who are highly deprived of being accessibility. Plea states that the "asymmetrical arrangement for online classes" are a cause or concern since they are presently limited to the "children of opulent section of the society and the children of the weaker sections remain deprived to the benefits of online classes.".There should be a broader mechanism be developed for ensuring the accessibility of the computer driven devices or any alternate arrangement of online classes for all the excluded and marginalized children of our country to ensure that deprived children may be beneficiary of online video classes in order to cover the loss of learning during the lockdown periodReads the plea.The plea avers that since India does not have a law equivalent to Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) except ad-hoc executive rulings, court directives and other government advisories, online education has become all the "more precarious and fragile as the children are increasingly exposed to the negative effects of unfettered accessibility of unwanted and sexually loaded contents".