The Supreme Court has issued notices to key Union ministries, seeking robust safeguards to protect minors from the inherent risks of social media and to prevent digital platforms from entering into contracts with children under 18 without parental consent.
Key Points
- Supreme Court seeks responses from Union ministries on child social media safety.
- Plea argues contracts with minors under 18 on digital platforms are void ab-initio.
- NGO highlights risks like online grooming, exploitation, and data misuse for children.
- Petition calls for amending IT Rules 2021 to mandate parental consent and e-KYC for minors.
- Current platforms like Facebook and Snapchat allow users from 13, despite Indian law treating under-18s as minors.
The Supreme Court on Thursday sought responses from the Union ministries of electronics and information technology as well as law and justice on a plea seeking safeguards for minors accessing social media and to ensure no such platform enters into a contract with a child below 18 years of age.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notices to the two ministries on the plea filed by NGO Just Rights for Children Alliance.
"We need some safeguards in India," the bench said after taking note of brief submissions by senior advocate HS Phoolka, who appeared for the NGO.
Call For Voiding Contracts With Minors
The plea seeking directions to the Centre to take appropriate steps to inform 'the digital platforms including social media intermediaries that any contract entered into by them with any child below the age of eighteen years is void ab-initio (invalid from the moment of creation) and that any steps taken in furtherance thereof shall be immediately suspended'.
The plea sought enforcement and protection of the fundamental rights of children below 18, who, despite their statutory incapacity to contract under Section 11 of the Indian Contract Act are currently permitted to independently create and maintain accounts and access social media and other digital platforms without an effective, uniform and enforceable mechanism to safeguard their legal incapacity and constitutional rights in the digital environment.
The plea said it is a settled principle of law that a minor lacks contractual capacity and that a contract entered into by a minor is invalid at the outset.
Addressing Online Harms And Constitutional Concerns
The continued exposure of children to contractual and data-driven digital ecosystems without meaningful age-assurance and parental safeguards is not a mere regulatory deficiency, but raises grave constitutional concerns, exposing a particularly vulnerable class to foreseeable and serious harms, including online grooming, sexual exploitation, trafficking, behavioural manipulation and profiling, misuse of personal data, cyberbullying and exposure to age-inappropriate content, it said.
Such unregulated exposure threatens the child's right to life, dignity, privacy, safety, healthy development and overall well-being, and consequently calls for an urgent judicial intervention to ensure that the digital environment does not become a domain where the statutory and constitutional protection accorded to children is rendered illusory, it said.
Inadequate Age Verification And Regulatory Gaps
The petition contended that despite strict penal provisions prohibiting the dissemination and storage of Child Sexual Exploitative and Abuse Material, internet platforms have failed to deploy automated content-filtering tools and age-verification mechanisms.
The plea contended that platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat (India) permit users to create accounts from the age of 13 while Indian law treats persons below 18 as minors.
Proposed Amendments To IT Rules
The PIL, filed through advocate-on record Sakthom Meheshwari, sought directions to amend the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, or frame specific guidelines, to ensure that no digital platform enters into a contract with a child below 18 without the consent of the parent or lawful guardian, subject to identity verification/e-KYC of the parent or guardian.
'Issue a writ, order or direction, directing respondent to issue guideline/advisories to digital platform(s) including social media intermediaries mandating that, wherever a minor is permitted to access or use any digital platform(s), such access or use shall be subject to a legally recognised mechanism of parental or lawful guardian involvement, including verification/e-KYC of the identity and authority of the parent or guardian, commensurate with the nature and risk of the service,' it said.
