Bhubaneswar, Feb. 17: Cyber crime has become a major worry for cops everywhere but Internet cafés in the capital city show scant regard for rules that make it mandatory for them to keep a tab on their clientele.

The Information Technology (Guidelines for Cyber Café) Rules, 2011, state that Internet users need to establish their identity by producing documents such as voter’s identity card, PAN card, driving licence, or school or college identity card before using such facilities at cyber cafés. But, almost all the cyber cafés in the city ignore these guidelines.

The café owners are also supposed to maintain a log book which would include an user’s name, address, gender, contact number, details of produced identification document, computer terminal identification, and log in and log out time. The café owners are also supposed to maintain the log register in a secure manner for a period of at least one year.

But in practice, the city’s Internet cafés hardly adhere to these instructions. The log register only contains log in and log out times.

The rules also lay emphasis on the size and position of the partitioned cubicles inside the cafés. All cubicles need not be covered and they need to be positioned in such a way that the person sitting at the controlling computer can monitor the movement of the person inside each cubicle. But this rule has also been violated in many cafés. Some cafés with screened entrances can also be found in the city.

In the past, the police had conducted raids on the cafés to nab persons engaged in illegal activities such as watching pornography. But, sources say such crackdowns have not happened for a long time now. This has resulted in café owners’ flouting the guidelines.

The penetration of Internet in urban households has resulted in many cyber cafés shutting shop in the capital city. From nearly 350 cyber cafés in Bhubaneswar three to four years ago, the count has dropped to a little over 100.

On February 2, 2010, the city police had arrested one person in connection with a threat mail sent from a Bhubaneswar cyber café to Naveen Patnaik. After that incident, the police had also started a drive to instruct cyber café owners to maintain a logbook.

The police are considered ill-equipped to crack cyber crimes because of lack of expertise in the field. But surprisingly, the police also do not have a detailed report of the cyber cafés in the city.

Cyber experts feel that verifying the identification of Internet users availing the facility at cyber cafés is essential to bring down the numbers of cyber crimes.

“The café owners can at least maintain a detailed logbook of Internet users. If anyone can use Internet without giving his/her whereabouts, there remains a big threat of misuse of cyber facilities,” said Amiya Mishra, a cyber expert.

Cyber café owners, however, say that following guidelines will mean more expenses for them. “We manage some cyber cafés with only two employees. If we have to follow the government’s instructions, we will have to hire more people for supervision of Internet activities. Unfortunately, that is not possible as it will cause us cost escalation,” said owner of a cyber café at Saheed Nagar.

However, the police said they had been repeatedly directing the café owners to adhere to these instructions.