Report: India's Laws Address Harmful Content, Not Platform Design Risks for Children

India's current laws address harmful online content and child sexual exploitation but fail to establish a comprehensive framework to mitigate risks arising from platform design, including recommendation systems and engagement-driven features. This finding comes from a report by NALSAR University of Law and the Indian Governance and Policy Project (IGAP).

The report, titled ‘The Child Safety Imperative: Age-Appropriate Digital Governance Pathways for India,’ identifies gaps in India’s legal framework. It recommends creating a dedicated online child safety framework centered on safety-by-design principles, platform accountability, and privacy-preserving age assurance. These conclusions coincide with several Indian states considering age-based restrictions on children’s social media access.

Existing Indian legislation, such as Section 67B of the IT Act, criminalizes the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSEAM), while IT Rules outline due diligence obligations for intermediaries. Though these rules have been updated to include synthetically generated content like deepfakes, they do not establish a system for regulating platform design. Recommendation algorithms and engagement-driven features can create risks that content moderation alone cannot address.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP Act) introduces protections against processing that harms children's well-being, but its child-specific provisions are not scheduled to take effect until May 2027. The report argues India needs a framework that addresses risks from digital services themselves, rather than relying solely on prohibitions against illegal content and individual conduct. While newer laws like the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita address certain forms of cyberbullying and defamation, they do not fully cover contemporary online harms such as sextortion.