New Delhi: The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Centre and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) on a plea seeking restrictions on children’s use of social media and an enforceable national framework to protect them from these platforms’ “psychological, educational and safety related harms”.
Invoking the State’s role as parens patriae, or guardian of those who cannot protect themselves, the petition, filed before the Supreme Court by an Indore school, has argued that the government must step in to protect children from social media risks they may not be equipped to understand or guard against.
The petition seeks greater State intervention in children’s use of social media. It contends that minors, by reason of their age and immaturity, cannot be expected to fully understand or protect themselves against the risks posed by platforms run by some of the world’s largest companies. Parents too, it says, have limited control over what happens once children enter these platforms.
Hearing the petition Friday, a Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi sought responses from the Centre and the NCPCR.
A key concern raised in the petition is the psychological effect of prolonged and largely unrestricted social media use on children, including the pressures associated with appearance, online comparison, perceived popularity and constant digital engagement.
Also read: NCPCR summons Google over AI ‘kiss & hug’ apps, to issue social media child safety norms by December
What plea says
The petition, filed by Emerald Heights International School, Indore, and its director, academic Siddharth Singh Girnar, says the school has seen children becoming increasingly preoccupied with photographs, appearance, “likes”, followers and perceived popularity. Comparisons with filtered images, curated lifestyles and artificial standards of beauty and success, it says, have been accompanied by body-image concerns, low self-esteem, fear of missing out, loneliness, anxiety, emotional distress and social withdrawal.
The plea also points to the effect of social media on children’s everyday lives, saying students come to school sleep-deprived, distracted and unable to concentrate after prolonged late-night social-media use. It refers to diminishing interest in studies, reading, sports, outdoor play, family interaction and real-world friendships.
Parents have voiced similar concerns, according to the school, particularly over prolonged phone use, behavioural changes and their inability to know what their children are watching, or whom they are interacting with online. The plea says parents have also reported children becoming irritable, withdrawn or aggressive, particularly when their phones are taken away.
The petition further argues that parental restrictions become difficult to sustain when a child’s peers are already on social media. Remaining offline in such circumstances, it says, can expose children to social pressure, fear of exclusion and fear of missing out.
The school says it has attempted counselling, parental engagement and awareness measures, but maintains that neither parents nor schools can address the problem alone because it also stems from the way social media platforms are designed and operated.
It is against this backdrop that the petition questions the manner in which children are currently allowed to access commercial social media platforms.
According to the plea, platforms generally prescribe a self-imposed minimum age of 13, which is largely enforced on the basis of the age declared by the user. A child can therefore enter an incorrect age and obtain access despite being below the platform’s stated threshold.
The petition contrasts this with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, which recognises a person below 18 as a child and provides enhanced safeguards, including verifiable parental consent and restrictions concerning tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children.
The plea argues that these safeguards may prove ineffective without a mechanism to ascertain whether a user is a child, particularly where a minor enters a false date of birth.
The plea highlights a similar gap in the existing IT framework. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, defines a “child” as a person below 18 and imposes due-diligence obligations on intermediaries, including in relation to information harmful to children.
Verification of accounts by significant social media intermediaries is voluntary under the IT Rules, 2021, but neither the IT Act nor the rules lead to age verification.
The petitioners have therefore sought a comprehensive framework beginning with a “reliable, proportionate and privacy-preserving” system of age assurance at account creation and, where necessary, subsequently, so that access is based on actual age rather than mere self-declaration.
They also seek a graded, age-appropriate system under which the features, functions and content available to users would be determined by their age, maturity and evolving capacities, with enhanced protection for every person below 18.
The petition seeks restrictions on the visibility, recommendation and accessibility of age-inappropriate content and mandatory child-safe settings for accounts identified as belonging to children.
These would include the highest available privacy settings and restrictions on public discoverability, location sharing, contact by unknown adults, unsolicited direct messages, group invitations and sharing of personal information.
The petition places these concerns within a broader constitutional framework. It invokes Article 21, including the rights to health, dignity and privacy, Article 21A, relating to education, and Article 15(3), which enables the State to make special provisions for children.
It also relies on Article 39(e) and (f), concerning protection of childhood and healthy development, and Article 47, which makes improvement of public health a primary duty of the State.
The plea also cites the Puttaswamy (2017) judgment, in which the Supreme Court recognised privacy as a fundamental right, to underline the significance of protecting children’s personal information in the digital environment.
While protections already exist under the Information Technology Act, 2000, the IT Rules, 2021 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the petition describes the regulatory framework as fragmented and incomplete. It says there is no uniform, enforceable child-centred regime bringing together age assurance, prevention of underage access, verifiable parental involvement, child-safe-by-default design, restrictions on adult-to-child contact and regulation of engagement-maximising features.
The petition further says the government has itself acknowledged the issue, referring to the Economic Survey 2025-26, which recognises digital and social media addiction among children and youth as a serious concern and suggests age-based access limit
It contends, however, that no national framework has been put in place.
The plea also cites international measures, including Australia’s minimum-age regime and measures adopted in several other countries, to support its case that regulation of children’s social-media access is workable.
Importantly, however, the petition does not frame the issue as one of taking the internet away from children. Its case is instead for regulating access to commercial social-media platforms and making those spaces safer for children. Its case is that the right to access the internet is not the same as a right to unrestricted access to every commercial service available through it.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also read: Age restrictions for social media not enough to protect children from online harm—NALSAR-IGAP report