Social Media Firms Voice Concerns As Govt Prepares New Data Protection Rules

Social media intermediaries have said that undoing behavioural tracking of children, verifiable parental consent (VPC) and targeted advertisements are among the biggest concerns they have with the data law that the government is prepping. 

As per an ET report, the rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act will be released soon and the companies hope the government will address these issues.

Section 9 of the DPDP Act, notified in the Gazette last August, disallows the behavioural tracking of children on digital platforms.

This prevents companies from monitoring children’s online activities, affecting the effectiveness of their safety features.

“There are some signals we must pick up of our users, of adults and children, to inform the effectiveness of our safety features,” a social media intermediary’s executives told ET.

“We’re working with the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) and other stakeholders to figure out a pragmatic, balanced approach to ensure privacy and safety of teenagers. We should be able to do as platforms do, the things that protect young users,” the executive added.

The government introduced the DPDP Act in August last year, prompting social media platforms to propose effective “child gating” methods, emphasising data minimisation principles. 

The DPDP Act defines users below the age of 18 as children and mandates that social media or internet intermediaries, known as data fiduciaries, must not process any data of any child without explicit parental consent.

Social media platforms are exploring methods like QR codes, virtual Aadhaar IDs, or age verification at the app store level to comply with DPDP Act of 2023. 

The provision has faced resistance from industry executives concerned about the privacy implications of the tools used to establish children’s age and parental connection. Despite this, the ministry may require intermediaries to adopt one of the suggested solutions for age-gating. 

These solutions would involve age verification tools based on determining the user’s age, identifying the parent, and establishing their connection with the child, according to an official.

Meanwhile, last year in November, in response to incidents of children encountering online predators on social media, the government reportedly devised a strategy. This aimed to offer social media and internet intermediaries multiple options to enforce age-gating and effectively manage parental consent.

Age-gating, a technical measure, is used to restrict underage individuals from accessing websites with restricted or inappropriate content.