Hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking to restrict the social media usage of minors and mandate compulsory parental consent, the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Central Government, stating that robust guidelines are needed to protect children in the digital environment.
I saw a few children in a park. They didn't have clay or toys in their hands; instead, every face was buried in the glow of a mobile phone screen. Seeing this, my mind was shaken by the memory of those two young girls who, aspiring to become their favorite 'K-Pop' singers, were brainwashed through 'Pinterest' and a language-learning app, left their homes, and were eventually rescued at the Siliguri border in West Bengal. These smartphones, which we buy for them as gifts of love and privileges, have actually turned into a grim reaper that exploits the very future of these young ones, going far beyond mere labor exploitation.
Before opening an account on any social media platform, we casually accept the 'Terms of Service' that appear across multiple screens. But how can a young boy, who struggles even to cross the road safely, understand these complex legal contracts? Over a century ago, in the Mohiri Bibi case, the law clearly established under the Indian Contract Act that any agreement entered into by a minor who has not attained the age of majority (18) is void from the beginning. That being the case, how do platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat allow 13-year-old minors without genuine age verification, relying merely on arbitrarily entered dates of birth? Senior Advocate H.S. Phoolka, appearing through Advocate Saksham Maheshwari on behalf of the NGO 'Just Rights for Children Alliance', put forth a volley of such arguments before the Supreme Court.
Hearing this crucial case, a bench headed by Justice Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, orally observed the need for digital safeguards to protect minors and ordered the issuance of official notices to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Ministry of Law, and the Ministry of Labour and Employment. The next hearing of this case is scheduled for September 25.
The plight of many children—sitting alone in a dark room, staring blankly at mobile screens with tears in their eyes after facing threats from anonymous individuals—is starkly evident in the statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Cybercrime cases against minors, which stood at a mere 7 in 2017, have multiplied massively to 164 in 2019, 842 in 2020, 1,376 in 2021, and 1,823 in 2022. Notably, the fact that over a thousand of these cases are related to cyber pornography exposes the dark side of our social media usage.
The objective of this petition is not to completely isolate children from the internet in the name of technological advancement, but rather to demand that a protective shield be built for them right from the design stage. In Australia, a complete ban is imposed on minors under 16, with fines levied on companies that violate the rules. In India, according to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of 2023, anyone under 18 is defined as a minor, and parental consent has been made mandatory to process their data. The rules to verify this using technologies like DigiLocker age tokens will come into effect from May 13, 2027. The provision that companies violating this will be fined anywhere from Rs. 200 crore up to a maximum of Rs. 250 crore per violation gives hope that the internet space will become at least somewhat safer for our children in the times to come.