The cybercafé operators of Mumbai are apparently sounding unhappy with fingerprint recording proposal of the Mumbai police. Yes, the proposed plan of the Mumbai police for making fingerprints recording mandatory at the city’s cyber cafes is getting strong reaction from cybercafé operators.

Seeing the increasing cases of cyber crime, the Mumbai police have recently proposed that fingerprints recording should be made mandatory practice at the city’s cyber centers, in order to hinder the misuse of cyber cafes and to prevent cyber crimes. The Mumbai police have started persuading cybercafé operators to support the proposal.  

But on the contrary, reacting to the proposal of the Mumbai police, cybercafé operators are advocating that the police should take strong action against the unauthorized and illegal cyber cafes, and the existing mandatory norm are enough.

The president of the Mumbai chapter of Association of Public ICT Tools Access Providers, Ashish Saboo said, "Making fingerprint system compulsory is not a good idea and may not be feasible. Police should first close down 1,000 unauthorized cafes operating in the city to bring down cyber crimes.''

Saboo asked, "Nowhere in the world do cybercafés have fingerprint scanners installed. Then why in Mumbai?"

In Mumbai, about 500 to 800 cybercafe operators have legal authorization to operate cybercafés, but there are about 1,000 unauthorised cybercafés, which are the big problem.

On the fingerprint recording proposal, the Additional commissioner of police (crime) Deven Bharti stated that the surging number of cyber crimes has compelled them to come up with the idea. The idea is to keep an eye on internet users to prevent cyber crimes.

On unauthorized cybercafés, Bharti revealed that they have been raiding the unauthorized-illegal cybercafés when ever they get complaint about them. Bharti promised that they will continue their raids on unauthorized-illegal cybercafés.

Bharti also revealed that the number of cyber crime cases grew from 142 in 2005 to 775 in 2008, which include fake profiling, defamation, sending obscene content, etc. The Mumbai police have already recorded over 155 cyber crime complaints this year.

However, the majority of cybercafe operators are not sounding happy with the fingerprint recording proposal of the Mumbai police. The cybercafe operators say it is totally uncalled for; they feel that it’s like treating customers like criminals and humiliating them; and they reckon that it will seriously affect their business.