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Fake Profile on Facebook: Illegality & penal consequences
Team SoOLEGAL 26 Mar 2021

Fake Profile on Facebook: Illegality & penal consequences

Social media plays a vital role for all internet users as it provides them with a medium to function on a daily basis by sharing different and all sorts of content within their community and across the globe.

While the users find it easy to communicate through these platforms, sexual predators and online fraudsters exploit these platforms by various means. One of the leading scams is creating a fake profile online. The cyber criminals create malicious identities which are harmful for both the users as well as the social media platforms.

One of the most common forums where these identity thefts keep recurring is Facebook. Although Facebook strongly condemns these activities and allows its users to report any such  case where the users suspect that someone is impersonating them and using their profile illegally. The fake profiles are often used to commit cybercrime anonymously or with an untraceable identity.

Unfortunately the graph of these cases have risen significantly and consequently the cases of cyber extortion have also hiked owing to personal data being available in social networking profiles.

One such case was reported back in the year 2011. It was one of Bengal’s first FB fake profile cases ever reported. In this case the predator had created a fake profile of the victim, who was a female law student, in order to take revenge from her on behalf of his girlfriend. Through the profile the predator used to invite people for absurd sexual favours and post defamatory pictures of the victim online.

The complaint was filed by victim’s father after the victim had reported the profile to FB authorities, who had provided the victim with a contact number which was registered with the fake account.

The case was initially handled by police and was later handed over to the CID, West Bengal. During the investigation, the accused’s house was raided and his gadgets were seized by the authorities. In the year 2016, the case took a crucial turn when Adv Bivas Chatterjee was appointed as a special prosecutor to the case wherein he had appealed for re-examination of the hard drive recovered from the accussed’s home. The decision of further examining the hard drive proved to be the turning point in the case as the original and exact images were found which were used from the fake account created by the accused to defame the victim.

Adv Bivas Chatterjee has over 18 years of professional experience of working in cyber law. He is the Public Prosecutor for Cyber Law & Electronic Evidence for entire West Bengal. His experience in the field has proven to be of substantial assistance in the present case as well as the court has finally delivered justice to the victim after 10 long years.

Further the judgment has set-forth a precedent for all such online fraudsters who conveniently defame innocent web users for their personal and vindictive interest.

A copy of the judgment along with the synopsis can be downloaded by clicking on the link: https://www.soolegal.com/rc/fb-fake-profile-cases-ends-in-1-year-jail

Did you find this write up useful? YES 7 NO 0
Prashant Mishra   31 Mar 2021 1:52pm
Nice article
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Shane pillay   30 Mar 2021 6:31am
Thank you we really need to know about cyber crimes today as there r lots of cases going on as atm fraudsters.some tells u to register in a firm and so read more
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Mukul Hossain   29 Mar 2021 10:54pm
Thank you Sir for helping the victim to get justice....
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P.E.Ramachandran   29 Mar 2021 10:53pm
It is informative and helpful
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