In light of Australia's Social Media Minimum Age Act and India's DPDP Act, 2023, evaluate the adequacy of India's current legislative framework in protecting children from harms of social media.

Q. In light of Australia's Social Media Minimum Age Act and India's DPDP Act, 2023, evaluate the adequacy of India's current legislative framework in protecting children from harms of social media. (15 marks, 250-350 words)

Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, 2024 — which age-restricted platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube for under-16s from 10 December 2025 [1] — marks a shift to hard user-side prohibition. India, by contrast, relies on a consent-and-data-protection model under the DPDP Act, 2023, which is partially adequate but leaves the design-driven harms of social media largely untouched.

Strengths of India's framework - Wide protective ambit: DPDP Act defines a "child" as anyone below 18 — broader than Australia's under-16 threshold [2]. - Verifiable parental consent: DPDP Rules, 2025 (notified November 2025) operationalise consent, with identity/age verification through virtual tokens and DigiLocker-notified providers [3]. - Ban on exploitative processing: behavioural tracking and targeted advertising directed at children are prohibited [2]. - Intermediary due diligence: IT Rules, 2021 impose content-removal and grievance-redressal duties on Significant Social Media Intermediaries (>5 million users).

Gaps and limitations - No regulation of algorithmic amplification — the proximate cause of harm. The US Kids Off Social Media Act (S.278) restricts recommendation systems for under-17s [4]; India has no equivalent. - Consent-centric, not design-centric: DPDP governs data, not addictive architecture — infinite scroll, autoplay, persistent notifications — which the UN attributes to deliberate commercial choices [5]. - Enforcement deficit: the Data Protection Board is nascent; age assurance is easily circumvented, and heavy ID-based verification creates fresh privacy risk [5]. - Federal friction: digital regulation is a Union subject, leaving State-level curbs constitutionally fragile.

India's framework is thus adequate on children's data privacy but inadequate on platform accountability. The way forward is not an Australian-style blanket ban — which the UN warns is circumventable and pushes children to less-monitored spaces [5] — but a "safe by design" duty of care: default-safe settings for minors, algorithmic transparency, child rights impact assessments, and prohibition of dark patterns. Regulating those who create risk, rather than those who bear it, best reconciles Article 21 protection with a child's Article 19(1)(a) participation.

(~330 words)

Sources: 1. Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 — Federal Register of Legislation, Australia — Australia's under-16 minimum age law and 10 December 2025 platform restriction 2. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (No. 22 of 2023) — MeitY — definition of child as below 18; bar on tracking and targeted advertising to children 3. Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025 — PIB — notification date and verifiable parental consent/virtual token mechanism 4. S.278 — Kids Off Social Media Act, 119th Congress — Congress.gov — restriction on algorithmic recommendation systems for under-17s 5. Banning children from social media is not the answer, UN warns — platforms must be made safe by design — UN News (May 2026) — addictive design as commercial choice; circumvention risk; safe-by-design guidelines