Social Media for minors may need nod

The government has released the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules outlining processes for safeguarding personal data, focusing heavily on consent mechanisms but notably lacks details on penalties for violations.

The government's new draft rules propose stricter regulations on the use of personal data, particularly for children and individuals with disabilities.

Under the guidelines, consent for opening social media accounts for minors must be "verifiable." Additionally, processing the personal data of children or individuals with disabilities will only be permitted with such "verifiable" consent.

To enforce this, the rules require data fiduciaries—entities responsible for managing data—to adopt robust technical and organizational measures. These measures must ensure that a parent's consent is verified before processing any data related to a child. The draft explicitly calls for due diligence to confirm that the person claiming to be a parent is an identifiable adult, as mandated by current Indian laws.