Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) [UPSC Notes]

The Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) was established by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (GAC) in February 2023. What is the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC)? What is its mandate? How will it benefit internet users? Know more about this development in this article for the IAS exam.

What is Grievance Appellate Committee?

The Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) will be introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and was created by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). 

• The top executive of the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) will preside over it.
• In accordance with the IT Regulations, 2021, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology developed the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) portal. 
• It enables consumers to make complaints about objectionable content and ask social media corporations to remove it.

Objectives of Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC)

The objectives of the Grievance Appellate Committee are as under:

• The primary goal of the Grievance Appellate Committee is to make sure that platforms’ grievance redressal methods are effective and accommodating to users.
• A change to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Regulations, 2021 was made in 2022 to force social media businesses to uphold all of the rights guaranteed to individuals by the Constitution, including those outlined in articles 14, 19, and 21.

Three Committees:

To take complaints and implement these adjustments, three committees were established.

• The first committee, which would handle complaints against unlawful or criminal activity, will be run by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The second will deal with false information or material and will fall under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
• MeitY will serve as the chair of the third committee, which will focus on copyright issues and any other illegal activity that is not already addressed elsewhere.

Conclusion: The GAC is a crucial component of the wider framework being constructed, and the new mechanism will encourage platforms to settle disputes on their own. The GAC is a continuation of the government’s goal of developing more and simpler dispute resolution mechanisms.

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