Just 18% internet users know how to report e-crimes
Internet usage is reaching a saturation point in India but only 18% of Indians know how to report cyber-crimes, a government survey released on Thursday said.
Usage, driven by smartphones and mobile data, is higher for the younger age groups. However, despite regular use (most respondents reported using the internet daily), even the young are poorly equipped for tasks related to education and work, like creating a document or a presentation, says the survey. On the bright side, the gender gap in mobile and internet use, other than in online transactions, is decreasing.
These trends are from the Comprehensive Modular Survey: Telecom (CMS: Telecom), conducted across 34,950 households in January-March 2025 by the National Statistics Office (NSO). NSO published the results of this survey on May 29. NSO had last collected data on mobile phone and internet use in a version of this survey – the Comprehensive Annual Modular Survey (CAMS) -- conducted in July 2022-June 2023, which surveyed 3,02,086 households, and also asked questions on other subjects, such as education and financial inclusion. The 2022-23 round, however, did not ask some questions on ICT skills – such as ability to make a presentation or report cyber-crimes – that the 2025 round did. Therefore, it is not possible to say if more people have these skills now. Similarly, inter-state comparisons are not possible using the data from the latest round because the reduced sample size cannot represent states.
Data from the 2025 CMS shows that 85.7% people of age 15 years and above used a mobile phone at least once in the three months preceding the survey, a proportion similar to 2022-23. However, this number has increased by 3.7 percentage points for the 15-24 age group to 97%. This means that the young are adopting mobile phones faster than the older age group. The younger age group also used smartphones (97% of mobile users) more than the older one (83% of mobile users).
Young people also used the internet more. 94% in the 15-24 age group reported internet use in the past three months compared to 70% among those 15 and above. However, age did not change the frequency of internet use much; around 90% internet users across age groups used it daily. People also mostly used the internet using a phone and mobile data: 98% in rural areas and 87% in urban areas.
With the wide adoption of smartphones and the internet, the proportion using online banking transactions has also grown: from 37.8% in 2022-23 to 48.9% in 2025. For the 15-24 age group, this number has increased from 37.5% in 2022-23 to 68% in 2025. Over 80% across age groups used only the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for such transactions.
The deed penetration of mobile phones and internet has, however, not informed people about seeking redressal for cyber-crimes, a trend cyber-criminals might be banking on. For example, cyber-criminals forced a 55-year old retired teacher to transfer ₹56 lakh using a 'digital arrest' on WhatsApp calls from April 1-28 this year before police was informed, HT reported on May 4. These anecdotal incidents may hold for a larger group of people as the 2025 CMS suggests most people are indeed unaware about methods of seeking redressal from cyber-crimes. Only 17.7% (26.3% in the 15-24 age group) reported the ability to 'complain about cybercrime/ report cyber fraud in the cybercrime reporting portal'.
Similarly, ICT skills that may be useful at work or in education are yet to reach even the young. Only 33% reported the ability to make an electronic presentation and only 24% could make a word document in the 15-24 age group. On the other hand, almost half of the age group could send emails and almost three-fourths said they had the ability to copy and paste data and documents.
Another positive news from the survey is that the gender gap in mobile and internet usage is decreasing, although largely among the young and more for sending messages than for online transactions. For example, the gender gap in mobile phone use decreased to 1.7 percentage points in favour of men in the 15-24 age group in 2025 compared to 4.2 percentage points in 2022-23. For the 15 and above age group, the gap was around 12 percentage points in both rounds. For online transactions, the gap remained around 20 percentage points across both rounds and age groups. Similarly, the gender gap in mobile ownership – when a person has a phone for personal use – was 20 and 28 percentage points for the younger and older age groups. This data was not available for the 2022-23 round.
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