The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Centre’s response on a petition seeking restrictions on social media use by minors, observing that “firewalls” are necessary to safeguard the rights of children.
Some firewall is necessary for protecting our children. It argued that minors are incapable of entering into any contract as the Indian Contract Act summarily declares a minor’s consent for an agreement to be void right from the time such an agreement comes into existence. Phoolka stated that the issue also raises privacy concerns. The petition urged the Centre to step in and declare all such accounts opened by children to be void.
The court made the observation while hearing a petition filed by Just Rights for Children Alliance which pointed out that social media intermediaries and digital platforms allow persons above 13 years to open accounts. The petition, argued by senior advocate HS Phoolka said, “It is well settled that an agreement entered into by a person who was a minor on the date of execution is void ab initio under section 11 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Yet, we are seeing that children below 18 years are permitted to independently create and maintain accounts on social-media platforms and access digital platforms. It stated that opening of an account on social media or digital platforms requires children to accept terms of service, user agreement, privacy policies, etc and this cannot be permitted when the law in the country does not recognise the right of a person below 18 years to enter any contract. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 recognises the special vulnerability of children and requires verifiable parental or guardian consent for processing personal data of a child. Even the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 are silent on the contractual capacity of a minor to access and use the services of social media intermediaries or digital platforms. Till such time the guidelines are framed in this regard by the Centre under the 2021 IT Rules, the petition requested the court to pass a direction restricting any digital platform from entering into a contract with a child under 18 years.
Issuing notice on a petition filed by a non-profit child rights body, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said, “There is need for some safeguards in India.
