Seven booked by CBI for peddling child pornography on WhatsApp

Three long months after receiving the information, the CBI registered a preliminary inquiry on May 10, 2019.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked seven Indians for being part of international WhatsApp groups circulating child sexual abuse content, a probe triggered by the arrest of a group member in Germany, officials said here Monday.

The agency has carried out searches at several locations across the country after registering an FIR against seven persons who owned the numbers which were part of the WhatsApp groups, they said.

The agency was informed by German Embassy on January 31, 2019 about the arrest and conviction of Sasche Treppke in that country for involvement in sexual abuse of children and distribution of related material between November 24, 2015 and July 8, 2016, according to the FIR.

Three long months after receiving the information, the CBI registered a preliminary inquiry on May 10, 2019 to verify the facts, the FIR said. During their investigation, German sleuths searched the residence of Treppke and found huge data in the form of pictures and videos pertaining to child sexual abuse, officials said.

It also surfaced that Treppke was member of 29 WhatsApp groups, having a total of 483 participants, on which the sexual abuse content was shared. Seven "active" Indian numbers too were found to be part of these WhatsApp groups, they said.

After nearly five months of preliminary inquiry, CBI managed to access the customer application forms and identity proofs submitted by these seven subscribers to establish their identities, they said.

The phone numbers are from Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Trying to contact them failed as none were functioning, they said.

Business Standard

Part of too many unwanted Whatsapp groups? Now you can control who adds you

With the new privacy setting for groups, users will have the option to set the privacy settings to either nobody, my contacts or everyone.

Facebook-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp on April 4 introduced a privacy setting for groups on its platform, providing users control on who can add them to groups. WhatsApp had been testing this feature under beta program, and from Wednesday onwards it will roll it out to all users in batches as an app update.

Until now, anyone available on WhatsApp had the option to create a group and add anyone from the list of contacts. With the new privacy setting for groups, users will have the option to set the privacy settings to either nobody, my contacts or everyone.

Nobody means you will be sent an invite to join a group, but you will not be added until you approve. My contact setting allows people in your WhatsApp contact list to add you in a group.

Here are the steps to check or enable the new privacy settings for groups:

Step 1: Update the WhatsApp app

Step 2: Open the app and go to settings

Step 3: In Settings, click on account, then privacy, then Whatsapp groups

Step 4: Tick on the radio box next to nobody, my contacts or everyone to change the settings, and you are done

Enabling nobody in privacy settings for a group would prompt the person inviting you to the group to send a private invite through an individual chat, giving you the option of joining the group. The invite will be valid for three days, before it expires and automatically rejects the invite request.

Business Standard