The debate over children’s online safety in India is moving beyond a narrow question of how old a user must be to access social media. A new study by Nalsar University of Law and the Indian Governance and Policy Project (IGAP) argues that age restrictions alone cannot address the risks created by platform design, data practices and weak institutional accountability.
The report, titled ‘The Child Safety Imperative: Age-Appropriate Digital Governance Pathways for India’, examines regulatory developments across 57 jurisdictions and reviews evidence relating to child and adolescent development. Its central distinction is important: regulating children’s access to social media is not the same as making their online experiences safer.
That distinction places the issue within a wider governance problem. Digital platforms are not simply communication channels that children choose to use. Their design can influence how long users remain engaged, what content they encounter and how their behaviour is observed or profiled. The Nalsar-IGAP study says India’s existing legal protections address serious offences, but are less equipped to regulate risks associated with algorithmic recommendations, persuasive design, behavioural profiling and excessive engagement.
The result is a gap between laws that respond to clearly defined criminal conduct and rules that govern the everyday architecture of digital services. The report’s argument is not that age thresholds are irrelevant. Rather, it says they should be treated as one component of a broader framework whose effectiveness depends on platform safeguards, privacy protections, oversight and the capacity to enforce responsibilities.
A fragmented global response
The study maps different approaches to age-based regulation across 57 jurisdictions. As of September 30, 2026, seven jurisdictions had measures in force, three had adopted measures awaiting implementation, 27 had formal proposals and 20 were under official review.
These figures do not represent 57 versions of the same policy. The report cautions against treating all the developments as bans because the measures vary considerably in legal status and design. Some involve restrictions on independent accounts, while others rely on parental linkage, usage limits or graduated protections.
This variation matters for India because an age threshold can produce very different outcomes depending on how it is implemented. A restriction may determine whether a child can create an account, but it does not by itself establish what happens after access is granted. It does not necessarily control recommendation systems, default privacy settings, targeted engagement features or the collection of behavioural data.
The study’s comparative approach therefore shifts attention from the existence of a rule to the machinery required to make it work. Age assurance, for example, may help determine whether a user falls within a protected age group. But the report says age verification alone does not guarantee a safer online experience and calls for privacy-preserving checks proportionate to the risks involved.
The Indian regulatory gap
According to the report, Indian laws already provide safeguards against serious offences including child sexual exploitation, harassment and cybercrime. Those protections remain necessary, but the study identifies a different category of concern: harms that may arise from ordinary platform operations rather than from a single illegal act.
Algorithmic recommendations, persuasive design and excessive engagement can shape the conditions in which children use digital services. Behavioural profiling can also raise questions about how information about young users is collected and used. The report argues that these issues require a more specific regulatory response than laws focused primarily on criminal conduct.
This is an institutional challenge as much as a technical one. A framework that addresses platform design needs clear responsibilities for companies, regulators and other actors. It also needs effective reporting mechanisms, technical expertise and credible oversight. Without those elements, a formal rule may exist without creating a reliable process for identifying harm, requiring changes or measuring whether safeguards are working.
Nalsar vice-chancellor Srikrishna Deva Rao said children’s online safety cannot rest principally with children and their families. He called for responsible platform design, meaningful oversight and safeguards that respect children’s privacy, rights and evolving capacities.
That position challenges a familiar allocation of responsibility. Families may be expected to monitor usage, set limits and respond to risks, while platforms control the design choices that shape the user experience. The study does not remove the role of parents or children, but it argues that responsibility cannot be transferred to them alone when the relevant risks are embedded in commercial digital systems.
What the international comparison shows
The jurisdictions examined by the report are pursuing different combinations of access controls and protective measures. The approaches cited include account restrictions, parental-linkage requirements, usage limits and graduated protections. The comparison suggests that the policy question is not simply whether children should be permitted to use a service, but what level of protection should apply to different ages, services and features.
The report also examines an August 2026 settlement in the United States involving Meta. The measures covered age assurance, usage limits, protective defaults, parental tools and oversight. However, the study notes that the effectiveness of these safeguards remains unproven. It also identifies unresolved questions around privacy, freedom of expression and competition.
Those unresolved issues are relevant to India because safeguards can create new risks if they require excessive personal information or intrusive forms of age verification. A system intended to protect children could itself become a source of privacy exposure if it collects more data than necessary or lacks credible controls over its use.
The report’s emphasis on proportionality is therefore significant. It calls for privacy-preserving age assurance rather than indiscriminate data collection. It also argues that regulation must preserve children’s access to information, education and beneficial digital services. Safety, in this framework, cannot be measured only by restricting access; it must also be assessed against rights and legitimate uses of digital platforms.
From rules to regulatory capacity
For India, the study recommends a dedicated, principle-based online child safety framework. It combines age-appropriate protections with responsible platform design, privacy-preserving age assurance and stronger institutional accountability. The report also calls for investment in regulatory capacity, digital literacy and India-specific research.
The emphasis on capacity is critical. A regulator may issue requirements, but implementation depends on whether institutions have the expertise to assess platform systems, investigate complaints and evaluate compliance. Clear responsibility is equally important: companies, public authorities and other stakeholders need to know who must act when a safeguard fails or a risk is identified.
Digital literacy is presented as another part of the framework, not as a substitute for regulation. Children and families need the ability to understand privacy, reporting tools and online risks, but the report’s broader argument is that literacy cannot compensate for unsafe defaults or platform practices that users cannot realistically control.
India-specific research is also necessary because policy cannot rely entirely on regulatory models developed elsewhere. The study’s review of 57 jurisdictions shows how varied the international approaches are, but it does not establish that a measure effective in one legal or social context will work in another. Research tied to Indian children, families, platforms and institutional conditions would help assess which safeguards reduce harm without imposing disproportionate privacy or access costs.
The larger urban governance question
Children’s online safety may appear separate from the physical city, but digital access is now part of how urban residents learn, communicate and use services. Schools, families, public institutions and businesses increasingly operate through digital systems. The governance of those systems therefore affects the wider built environment and the everyday functioning of cities, even when the risk is experienced through a phone rather than a street or building.
The Nalsar-IGAP study ultimately asks whether regulation should focus on controlling users or on making systems safer. Its evidence supports a more layered approach: age thresholds may be useful, but they need to sit alongside privacy safeguards, protective design, reporting channels, institutional expertise and oversight.
What the report establishes is the limit of age restrictions as a standalone response. What remains unresolved is how India would design, administer and evaluate a framework that balances safety with privacy, expression, competition and access to information. The next stage of the policy debate will depend on whether those responsibilities are clearly assigned and whether safeguards are judged by their ability to reduce actual harm rather than by their formal existence alone.
