Blanket bans versus age-appropriate safeguards: assess the ethical trade-offs between State paternalism and child autonomy in digital governance.

In October 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish that children have a fundamental right to access the Internet under Article 19(1)(a). It rejected blanket bans but still allowed age-based restrictions [1]. So the ethical question is not whether to choose safety or freedom. It is how far State protection can go before it removes a child's autonomy.

Blanket bans: the paternalist case and its costs

• Duty of care (parens patriae): Children are exposed to grooming and abuse material. The Court's 2024 ruling made storing CSEAM with intent an offence under Section 15 of the POCSO Act [2].
• Disproportionate: A ban cuts off education, information and self-expression. The Court held that a blanket restriction on children's access is not justified [1].
• Treats the child as an object, not a rights-holder: This goes against the UNCRC principle of "evolving capacities".
• Moral hazard: Bans can push children towards unregulated spaces. They also take pressure off the platforms whose design creates the risk.

Age-appropriate safeguards: autonomy with protection

• Targets harmful design, not access: The DPDP Act, 2023 requires verifiable parental consent to process the data of anyone under 18. It bans tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children [3].
• Protects core interests: Healthcare, education and real-time safety are exempt from the consent requirement [4].
• Shared responsibility: The Court directed the Centre to build a national database to detect CSEAM [1]. Intermediaries must report such offences [2].

Trade-offs within safeguards

• Privacy vs verification: Consent may be verified through age checks and virtual tokens [6]. PRS notes that age-gating every user could weaken online anonymity [3].
• Parental control vs adolescent autonomy: One consent rule for everyone under 18 can override older teenagers' own judgment and privacy.
• Implementation gap: The DPDP Rules, 2025 allow an 18-month phased rollout, so protection arrives gradually [5].

Assessment: Blanket bans offer administrative certainty but fail the reasonableness and proportionality test of Article 19(2). Calibrated safeguards are ethically better, despite their privacy costs.

Overall, the evidence favours regulating platforms over excluding children. The way forward includes safety-by-design, privacy-preserving age assurance, more autonomy for adolescents as they grow older, and digital literacy and sex education in schools. This approach supports the Court's view that protection need not mean restriction. It also advances SDG 4 (education) and SDG 16.2 (ending abuse of children).