Asked for a bribe? A new platform,’bribes.fyi’ lets you report it anonymously

Reporting Bribery Without Leaving a Trace: Inside bribes.fyi

Indiadailyupdate.com – Walking into an RTO counter, a police station, or a municipal office in India often means bracing for the familiar question: how much will you need to pay to get things moving? Most citizens who encounter such demands keep the story to themselves, telling friends over chai but never recording it in any form that could expose systemic patterns. A new web platform called bribes.fyi aims to break that silence by converting scattered, anonymous encounters into a structured, publicly accessible dataset.

What the Platform Does

Describing itself as India’s first crowdsourced bribe registry, bribes.fyi lets anyone log an incident without registering an account or revealing a name. Reporters supply the department involved, the city, the amount demanded, and a brief description of what transpired. The system captures both cases where a bribe was accepted and those where the citizen pushed back. No login, no email, no identity required.

Early Numbers Tell a Story

By August 17, the registry had accumulated 792 reports from across the country. Police departments topped the list with 426 entries, far ahead of any other agency. Karnataka emerged as the state generating the most reports, while also posting an 11 per cent refusal rate. Jammu and Kashmir stood out for the sheer size of demands, with an average bribe amount of ₹19,067.

Built Around Privacy

The project was launched by Aryan Nishad, a BTech student at Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology. Its defining architectural choice is privacy: IP addresses are hashed before storage rather than kept in raw form, meaning a report cannot be traced back to a specific device or linked across multiple days of activity.

Public Reaction

Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of People Group, took to LinkedIn to commend the effort.

“Could this be transformational for our country? Regardless, this kid needs to be applauded for the sheer audacity & can-do attitude that has the potential to improve governance & accountability in our country. Hopefully, GenZ & Alpha will follow his example and bring meaningful change to India 🇮🇳 Truly inspiring.”

Filing a Report and What Happens Next

The submission process is deliberately frictionless: enter the department, state the amount, describe the interaction, and submit. No name field exists. Once reports begin clustering around a particular office or officer, an algorithmic layer flags the recurring pattern as verified. Every verified entry then enters a permanent public index, searchable by state, department, amount, and date—making the data a lasting, queryable record rather than a fleeting social-media post.