According to several reports, the government has requested that social media and technology businesses come up with ways to confirm children’s ages in compliance with the nation’s new data protection laws.
On Thursday, representatives of large tech companies and social media platforms met with officials from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to discuss matters pertaining to parent-child relationship verification under the so-called age-gating requirements of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act.
“The ministry clarified that while the platforms must decide how to execute the age-gating rule, the government does not want enterprises to be negatively impacted in any way. A source informed “Business Standard” that the ministry was particularly receptive to criticism.
The ministry attempted to check age using Digilocker and Aadhaar authentication, but found the measures to be ineffective. Regulators, huge tech companies, and social media companies are concerned about age-gating, which blocks users under the age of eighteen from using a variety of digital programmes.
Platforms must get “verifiable consent” from a parent or legal guardian under the DPDP Act before processing the personal information of users who are younger than 18. One of the most divisive topics during the Bill’s public discussions the previous year was this clause.
According to Section 9 of the DPDP Act, the “data fiduciary” must first obtain explicit consent from the parent of the child or the person’s legal guardian before handling any personal data belonging to a child or a person with a disability who has a guardian.
Subclauses under Section 9 state that the fiduciary shall not process personal data in a way that could have a negative impact on a child’s wellbeing. The law also prohibits the fiduciary from tracking or monitoring a child’s behaviour or from engaging in targeted advertising for children.