Parental Consent Makes the Right to Internet Conditional

21 Oct 2026

Tags: Polity & Constitution   Foundations   Key constitutional provisions

Source: The Indian Express

Context: The Supreme Court held that the right to access and use the internet is a fundamental right extending to children, irrespective of age. It rejected blanket restrictions, observing that keeping children offline because platforms fail to remove abusive material would amount to blaming the victim.

• Emerging Concern: The article argues that mandatory parental consent for children's social media accounts could indirectly make their fundamental right to internet access conditional on family approval, despite the rejection of blanket bans.

Parental Consent Framework

• Proposed Regulation: During a September 28 hearing on a separate petition, the Solicitor General suggested that the parental-consent model under data-protection law could be adopted through another law to regulate children's access to online accounts.
• Supreme Court's Suggestions: The Court recommended parental consent, guidance and oversight, alongside a dedicated child mode with private-by-default accounts and restrictions on contact from unknown adults.
• Digital Personal Data Protection Framework: The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, provide for verifiable parental consent before processing children's personal data, with verification of the parent's adulthood through reliable identity and age details. A government-notified digital locker is one possible verification route.
• Compliance Burden: Platforms must maintain sufficient records to demonstrate compliance, potentially linking a child's account to a verified adult's identity.

Concerns with Mandatory Parental Consent

• Privacy and Surveillance: The Supreme Court itself cautioned that age-based restrictions require identifying users, continuously collecting and monitoring sensitive data, and create disproportionate risks of misuse and surveillance. The article argues that parental-consent requirements can generate similar risks.
• Conditional Access: Children may gain access only after an adult's identity is verified and consent is obtained, making their practical ability to exercise the right dependent on parental approval.
• Reinforcement of Social Inequalities: Family-based mediation may deepen existing inequalities. According to ASER 2024, rural girls aged 14–16 have lower phone ownership and social media usage than boys.
• Risks to Vulnerable Children: Mandatory parental oversight may disadvantage girls in conservative households, queer teenagers and children experiencing abuse at the hands of the very adults required to provide consent.
• Platform and State Incentives: The author argues that platforms may find parental verification easier than strengthening content safeguards, while the state could obtain an additional layer of verified identities without explicitly legislating a general internet-access restriction.

Alternative: Platform-Centred Child Safety

• Privacy by Default: Require children's accounts to be private by default, reducing unwanted exposure.
• Contact Restrictions: Restrict unsolicited messages and contact from unknown adults.
• Advertising Controls: Strengthen safeguards against exploitative or inappropriate advertising targeted at children.
• Data-Minimising Age Verification: Where age verification is necessary, use systems that return only an over-or-under age threshold result, without disclosing additional identity information.
• Platform Accountability: The Court has asked the Centre to report on tools used by platforms to detect and remove Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Material (CSEAM). The author argues that weak compliance should lead to penalties against platforms rather than additional documentation burdens for parents.

Constitutional and Governance Significance

• Rights versus Protection: The debate concerns how to protect children from online exploitation without undermining their rights to information, education, expression and digital participation.
• Proportionality: Restrictions on fundamental rights must satisfy legality, legitimate state interest and proportionality. Child-safety measures should therefore be carefully designed to avoid unnecessary restrictions and excessive data collection.

Way Forward: Prioritise platform-level safety obligations, privacy-preserving age assurance, effective enforcement and accessible reporting mechanisms, while ensuring that parental involvement does not become an absolute barrier to children's digital access.