Government urges tech giants to devise methods for children’s age verification

MeitY has urged tech giants like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and others to enable children’s age verification methods as per the DPDP Act.

On July 18, a meeting chaired by S Krishnan involved Meta, Google, Sharechat, Snap, and others. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) asked tech giants like Google, Facebook, Instagram, X, and others to develop methods for verifying children’s age on their platforms. As per a report by Money Control, the Ministry has told them that they won’t prescribe any method to the industry for the same.

The government advises social media platforms to explore children’s age verification methods.

The government said it won’t be prescribing methods; instead, it wants these social media platforms to explore and develop tech-enabled methods to comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, as per a report.

A meeting organized by the IT ministry with tech representatives.

On July 18, a meeting was organized at the IT ministry to discuss the issue of children’s age verification on social media platforms. MeitY Secretary S Krishnan chaired the meeting. Sources informed that from the tech industry side, the meeting was attended by Google, Meta, Sharechat, and Snap representatives. The Ministry hasn’t been able to develop a foolproof method for verifying children’s age so far. Previously, they explored using Aadhaar and Digilocker, but these methods were found to be unfeasible.

About the DPDP Act.

The DPDP Act 2023 defines a child as someone under 18 years old. The act provides for the processing of digital personal data in a way that recognizes individuals’ right to protect their personal data and the need to process such personal data for lawful purposes. The Act’s Section 9 mandates social media platforms to obtain verifiable consent from the parent before processing the child’s data.

The IT ministry quoted section 8) (4) of the DPDP Act requiring platforms to implement “appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure effective observance of the provisions of this Act and the rules.”