Can India ban children from social media? Experts say the cure may be worse than the problem

The debate over banning children from social media in India has intensified, with experts warning that a complete ban may be difficult to enforce and could push children towards hidden accounts or unsafe platforms. While concerns over addiction, mental health, cyberbullying, and harmful content are growing, experts suggest a balanced approach involving age verification, parental supervision, digital literacy, and stricter platform accountability rather than an outright ban. The focus should be on creating safer online spaces for children. Sajai Singh, Partner at JSA Advocates and Solicitors, said age verification presents significant privacy and operational challenges. “Without invasive ID or biometric collection, platforms can only verify age in India by relying on some form of decentralized, privacy-preserving cryptographic frameworks and device-level verification,” Singh said. Potential approaches could include token-based verification systems, age estimation technologies based on facial analysis, or reliance on trusted third parties such as banks, credit bureaus, device manufacturers and app stores. However, Singh cautioned against turning platforms into repositories of highly sensitive personal data. “The idea should be not to collect and store identity documents or biometric data for age verification, as this would make platforms custodians of massive, highly sensitive databases that are prime targets for hackers,” he said. Read more