For many Indians, being asked for a bribe while dealing with a government office is an experience that is frustratingly familiar. Whether it involves an RTO, police station, municipal office or another public service, such incidents often remain individual stories, shared privately but rarely documented in a way that reveals larger patterns.
A new platform, bribes.fyi, is attempting to change that by turning anonymous experiences of bribery into structured public data.
What is bribes.fyi?
The official website states that it is India’s first crowdsourced bribe registry. Created as a privacy-focused platform, bribes.fyi allows people to report bribery incidents anonymously.
Users can share information about an incident, including the department, city and nature of the interaction, without creating an account. The platform is designed to make it easier for citizens to document both bribes they were asked to pay and instances where they refused.
As of August 17, a total of 792 reports were filed across India, with the police being tagged with 426 reports, the highest among departments. Anonymous users reported Karnataka to be the state with the highest number of bribe reports, with an 11 per cent refusal rate. Jammu and Kashmir has been reported to be the state with the highest bribe amount, with an average of ₹19,067.
Created by Aryan Nishad, a BTech student from Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, the website's main feature is privacy, with IP addresses are hashed rather than stored in raw form. So it cannot be traced back to the user or used to link the reports across days.
Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO at People Group, recently applauded the website on LinkedIn. "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," his post mentioned.
How can you file a bribe report?
No account is needed for a user to file a report. Users need not submit their name. Just furnish the details regarding the department, the amount demanded and describe what happened.
When reports cluster around one office or officer, the algorithm flags a verified pattern automatically. The data goes public permanently, as every verified report enters the public index, which is searchable by state, department, amount, and date.
