DAW 11th December 2025, Mains Answer Writting 2026

DAW 11th December 2025, Mains Answer Writting 2026

Question

India is yet to implement a comprehensive framework for children’s online safety under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. What are the potential social and ethical concerns India must address in regulating children's access to digital platforms? (250 Words, 15 Marks). 

Model Answer

Approach: 

Introduction:  

  • Begin with the growing digital presence of children, rising risks, and the regulatory gap despite the DPDP Act, 2023. 

  • Highlight the core dilemma: balancing safety with digital rights and equitable access. 

Body: 

  • Explain key social and ethical concerns: freedom vs safety, privacy risks, digital inequality, parental burden, surveillance, mental health, and dangers of blanket bans. 

  • Analyse India-specific challenges under the DPDP Act: parental authority vs autonomy, exemptions ambiguity, compliance burdens, and issues around child influencers. 

  •  Discuss shortcomings of global and Indian approaches, including enforcement and privacy concerns. 

  • Provide a way forward: digital literacy, age-appropriate design, balanced verification, inclusion, platform collaboration, and protections for child creators. 

  • Add a case study: Australia’s minimum-age law and its implications. 

Conclusion: 

  • Conclude with emphasis on the need for a child-centric, rights-based, inclusive regulatory framework that balances protection and digital freedoms. 

  •  Introduction: 

  • In the digital age, children are deeply embedded in online platforms that offer vast opportunities for learning, communication, and socialisation, but also expose them to cyber bullying, exploitation, and harmful content. With India’s internet user base set to exceed 900 million by 2025, safeguarding young users has become a pressing concern.  

  • Although the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 lays a basic framework, India still lacks a comprehensive regime for children’s online safety. The central policy challenge is to balance protection from digital harms with preserving children’s right to information and equitable access- an issue underscored globally by measures such as Australia’s minimum-age law for social media. 

 Body: Case study: AUSTRALIA HAS become the first country in the world to enforce a minimum age for social media use, requiring platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Snap to block more than a million accounts of users below the age of 16. 

  • Australia’s Approach: 

  • Platforms must take “reasonable steps” to detect and deactivate underage accounts. 

  • Fines up to $33 million for non-compliance. 

  • Dating apps, gaming platforms, and AI chatbots are excluded for now. 

Social and Ethical Concerns in Regulating Children’s Access to Digital Platforms: 

  • Freedom of Expression vs Protection from Harm: 

  • Blanket age restrictions- such as Australia’s minimum age of 16-may curtail children’s freedom of expression and digital participation.  

  • In India, where a child is defined as under 18, stringent limits risk undermining adolescents’ digital autonomy. 

  • Privacy Risks and Age Verification: 

  • Reliance on Aadhaar or ID-based verification raises concerns of data oversharing, profiling, and breaches. Such practices violate data minimisation norms and threaten children’s “right to an open future” due to permanent digital traces. 

  • Digital Inequality and Exclusion: 

  • With only 53% rural internet access (2023), strict verification may exclude children lacking digital IDs or personal devices. Shared-device use further complicates monitoring, pushing many towards unsafe, unsupervised online spaces. 

  • Parental Burden Amid Low Digital Literacy: 

  • Only 40% of Indians can perform basic digital tasks. Mandatory parental consent under the DPDP Act assumes high digital awareness, deepening inequities as affluent families can better protect their children. 

  • Surveillance and Over-Monitoring Risks: 

  • Ambiguities around behavioural tracking affect legitimate uses such as health monitoring (e.g., glucose sensors). Excessive monitoring may infringe bodily autonomy and pose psychological risks. 

  • Mental Health Harms and Platform Design: 

  • Over 50% of young Australians report cyber bullying. Indian children face similar threats such as addiction, harmful algorithms, and content exposure, aggravated by platform designs that maximise engagement. 

  • Ethical Issues with Blanket Bans 

  • Examples like South Korea’s “Cinderella Law” show that strict bans can drive children to workaround behaviours, fake identities, or unregulated platforms- creating greater long-term risks. 

 India’s Core Social and Ethical Challenges in Implementing DPDP Act for Child Safety: 

  • Reconciliation of Parental Authority vs Child Autonomy: 

  • Adolescents (15–17 yrs) may resist parental consent requirements. 

  • Overemphasis on parental control disregards the “evolving capacities of the child”. 

  • Ambiguity in Exemptions and Sectoral Application: 

  • Uncertainty about whether EdTech platforms qualify as “educational institutions” creates compliance risks. 

  • Tech-wearables, baby monitors, and health apps fall into regulatory grey zones. 

  • Dysfunctional Compliance Burdens on Small Platforms: 

  • Smaller EdTech or start-up platforms may struggle with cost-heavy verification mechanisms, impeding innovation. 

  • Impact on Child Influencers and Digital Labour: 

  • India lacks laws like France, which protects earnings of child influencers. 

  • Child influencers are vulnerable to exploitation, data misuse, and emotional stress. 

Way Forward: Ethics-Aligned, Child-Centric and Inclusion-Oriented Framework: 

  • Strengthen Digital Literacy: 

  • Integrate online safety modules in NEP 2020 curriculum. 

  • Launch targeted digital literacy programmes for parents and teachers, especially in rural India. 

  • Age-Appropriate Design Framework: 

  • Adopt an Indian version of the UK’s Age-Appropriate Design Code. 

  • Platforms should tailor features (privacy defaults, screen time nudges, safe search) based on age bands. 

  • Balanced Age Verification: 

  • Use privacy-preserving, anonymous age estimation tools. 

  • Avoid Aadhaar-based verification except in voluntary, high-trust contexts. 

  • Support for Vulnerable Children: 

  • Create child helplines for cyberbullying, online grooming, and content harm. 

  • Strengthen NCPCR’s monitoring powers. 

  • Inclusive Regulatory Approach: 

  • Ensure policies do not inadvertently exclude children without documentation or device ownership. 

  • Collaboration with Tech Platforms: 

  • Co-create safe-design standards through partnerships with global Big Tech, civil society, and academia. 

  • Protect Child Influencers and Labour Rights: 

  • Enact laws protecting earnings, working hours, and data privacy of child digital creators. 

Conclusion: 

  • India faces a complex socio-ethical balancing act in regulating children’s access to digital platforms. While the DPDP Act sets the foundation, challenges persist around consent, autonomy, fairness, surveillance, and digital divides. Learning from Australia and other global models, India must adopt a child-centric, rights-based, and inclusion-driven framework that protects children from harm without undermining their digital freedoms or access to learning. Ensuring this balance will be critical to safeguarding India’s young users in an increasingly digital society.