The draft rules for the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Friday, stated that children below the legal age (18) will require verifiable parental consent before accessing social media accounts. The rules open for public consultation until February 18, 2025, defines the consent for processing a child's personal data or of person with disability who has lawful guardian.
It reads, "Fiduciary shall adopt appropriate technical and organisational steps to ensure that verifiable parental consent is obtained before the processing of any personal data of a child and shall observe due diligence, for checking that the individual identifying herself as the parent is an adult who is identifiable if required in connection with compliance with any law for the time being in force in India."
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An illustration provided in the DPDP rule mentions few cases on the processing of children's data. For example, it says, "If C is a child, P is her parent, and DF is a Data Fiduciary. A user account of C is ought to be created on the online platform of DF, by processing the personal data of C."
According to an official statement by Ministry, the DPDP act aims to strengthen the legal framework by safeguarding digital personal data. It offers necessary details and an actionable framework.