Cyber law clinics: A digital safety net

As digital technologies become deeply woven into daily life, India stands at a critical juncture. While digitalisation offers vast opportunities, it also brings serious risks — fraud, identity theft, cyberstalking, and data breaches. Alarmingly, cybercrime affects not just the digitally uninitiated but also the educated and tech-savvy, exposing the widespread and indiscriminate nature of these threats. Marginalised and vulnerable communities, already grappling with limited access to education, infrastructure, and justice, are particularly vulnerable. These groups often lack the digital literacy to identify online threats and the legal awareness or resources needed to respond effectively. In India, the digital divide is not merely a matter of technology; it is profoundly legal and social in nature. Addressing this divide requires structured, institutional interventions grounded in law, education, and public service.

Legal education institutions, especially through their legal services clinics, are well-placed to bridge this complex gap. One urgent and strategic intervention is the integration of Cyber Law Clinics as specialised wings within these existing Legal Services Clinics. Given that nearly all law schools are already mandated to run legal aid clinics, introducing a cyber law wing within their operational framework ensures administrative feasibility while amplifying societal impact.

Such an initiative serves dual purposes: it sensitises the public to cyber law and offers law students hands-on exposure to a field of growing jurisprudential depth. Through outreach, research, complaint facilitation, and advisory services, students gain more than academic insight — they evolve into socially responsible legal professionals. With proper training and pedagogical support, they can be nurtured into future cyber law experts, capable of guiding India through the complex legal and ethical terrain of the digital era.

In particular, the Bar Council of India, through its August 2024 circular, has urged universities to revise their curricula by incorporating emerging fields like cyber law, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology. A progressive approach to implementing this would be integrating cyber law into clinical legal education. This method allows students to directly engage with affected communities, turning classroom learning into practical service.

This model is gaining traction globally. In several Western jurisdictions, leading universities have established dedicated cyberlaw clinics as hubs for student training, public education, and policy research. In India, while some law schools have initiated cybercrime awareness efforts, there remains a pressing need to institutionalise and scale these by integrating cyber law clinics within existing legal services clinics. This would significantly enhance public outreach and provide students with vital exposure to an increasingly impactful area of law.

For this integration to be meaningful and substantive, however, students must receive training in this specialised area of law. An active collaboration between law schools and cybercrime divisions, state forensic laboratories, or dedicated agencies such as the Cyber Crime Investigation Training & Research units is imperative. These bodies can provide critical technical inputs, help design practical training modules, and guide clinics in addressing real-world scenarios.

These clinics can also evolve as instrumental nodes of public advocacy and legal empowerment. They can orchestrate awareness drives in rural and urban communities, create multilingual educational materials, and offer accessible pro bono legal assistance to victims of cybercrime. Simultaneously, they can engage in empirical research and policy feedback to improve systemic responses to digital harms within the broader legal framework.

At its core, this initiative bridges key gaps — linking awareness with action, education with service, and digital access with digital justice. By integrating cyber law clinics into the legal aid framework, law schools can prepare students to navigate the complex intersection of law and technology. These clinics not only build legal capacity in emerging areas but also offer vital support to victims — assisting with complaint filing, connecting with cybercrime authorities, and guiding them through legal remedies.

In a country where the Internet serves as both a tool of empowerment and exploitation, the need for such a specialised, service-oriented legal intervention is not merely optional — it is an incontrovertible imperative. Law schools must rise to this significant occasion, equipping their students to protect, educate, and empower the communities they are duty-bound to serve.

(The writer is an associate professor of law, IFIM Law School, Bengaluru)