Will social media benefit from age of consent?

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Though the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 is going to reduce the age of consent from the current level of 18 years it is not going to help social media entities such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Sharechat and YouTube, The Economic Times has stated in a report.

Quoting a senior government official, who requested anonymity, the report said the clause relaxing age of consent will be applicable to companies that are fully focussed on children such as edtech and healthtech. Once the legislation is in place, these platforms can approach the administration to be declared “extremely safe” for children. Once age of consent is relaxed, parental consent won’t be required to access these portals once the user crosses the newly-lowered floor.

However, significant social media intermediaries (SSMI) – a label given to internet platforms with more than 5 million users such as Facebook and Twitter – will not be able to utilise this leeway. Significantly, these MNC tech giants intensely lobbied with the government to lower the age of consent which would, if applicable to them, would have helped them boost their subscriber/user base in India.

Experts had pointed out that globally the age of consent is recognised to be 16 years.

The government, according to the report, is emphasising that the platforms that would be allowed to enlist users below 18 years have to demonstrate that they purvey information/data in a “verifiably safe” manner.

“There is a provision in the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill that encourages platforms to like education platforms to develop into spaces that are safer for children. As platforms get verifiably safe, especially those that serve children, they can apply to the government to reduce the age beyond which parental consent is mandatory,” said the official.

Incidentally, the draft of the proposed Bill released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in November 2022 stated that the age of consent would continue to be 18 years. Anyone below that age, irrespective of the portal he/she wants to access, would require parental approval. Many had pointed out to the government that such a filter would compel a user to negotiate multiple hurdles before he/she can access a portal.

Entities such as Facebook which has users below 18 vehemently protested keeping 18 years as the filter. Even Meta’s (owner of Facebook) global head of safety Antigone Davis told the newspaper that strict age-filters is not warranted. The government official, however, argued that any platform that wants to benefit from a lower age of consent needs to be marked “extremely safe” for children.