To Protect Children from Harm in Digital Spaces, DPDP Regulations will be Further Improved: Vaishnaw

Nitin Konde, Varun Bhardwaj

Jan 9, 2025 — 2 min read

DPDP Regulations to Be Strengthened for Child Safety Online: Vaishnaw

According to reports, the Centre is trying to improve the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules in order to protect kids from online dangers and encourage their use of technology. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated in a media agency report that the rules will change in response to lessons learnt from their application. "We will continue to improve it (DPDP Rules) to give kids access to technology while protecting them from numerous risks," he stated. The draft DPDP Rules 2025 were made public by the government on January 3 and are available for public comment until February 18, 2024. Users under the age of 18 are considered children under the DPDP Act, which requires social media companies and other online intermediaries—known as data fiduciaries—to get express parental approval before processing any kid data.

What New Drafted Rules State?

According to the draft regulations, digital platforms are only permitted to process a child's data with a verified parent or guardian's approval. Either a virtual token issued by a legally authorised entity or freely supplied identity and age information can be used for verification. According to Vaishnaw, the token system has worked well in a number of situations, including transaction verifications based on Aadhaar. He clarified that the tokens will be transient and only be used for one transaction before being instantly destroyed. The minister added that if necessary, sector-specific guidelines might be released, but only after speaking with stakeholders and experts in the relevant area.

Individual Privacy will Remain Intact

Virtual token verification won't jeopardise personal privacy, according to Vaishnaw. He affirmed that because whistleblowers are legally protected, they would not be impacted by the DPDP Act. He added that the DPDP Act has no restrictions on the number of complaints that can be filed. According to a report from last year, social media companies are looking into ways to comply with the DPDP Act of 2023, such as using QR codes, virtual Aadhaar IDs, or app store-level age verification. Industry executives, however, objected to this clause because they were worried about the privacy implications of using these tools to determine the ages of children and confirm parental relationships.

Strict Compliances are the Need of the Hour

S. Krishnan, Secretary of the Government of India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), claims that compliance is really increasing dramatically and that a great number of cases are resolved before the blocking issue is even raised. They act on it right away. According to their own community guidelines or the government's removal demands for illegal content, they now complete these tasks much more quickly than they did in the past.

There has been a noticeable increase in both the quantity and timeliness of items removed. These cover topics including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), inappropriate information of all kinds, and anything that could sabotage peace in the community, S. Krishnan noted further.