Technology giants such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Snap-chat, having large number of followers mostly including teenagers in India, are likely to be hit if Justice Srikrishna Committee’s suggestions to track data of and advertising targeted at users under the age of 18 are accepted. It suggests excluding such companies from reporting and tracking of children, monitoring their behavior and activities or targeting them with advertisements and using any of their personal data that can cause damage to them.Although some of the websites and apps allow children to sign up if they are 13 years of age or older, under India’s laws their terms and conditions are not considered valid. The Srikrishna panel is recommending enforcement the law stating that a minor cannot enter into a contract, under the Indian Contract Act 1872. Companies will require to set-up age verification mechanism and get parental approval of the users under the age of 18. In US, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act is applicable for those under the age of 13 — this is what the social media majors currently follow in India, too. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has set the age limit for parental consent at 16.
“Children are more vulnerable than adults, so longer the protection, the better. Everyone is interested in the generation that is coming, not the generation that has gone by. Everything that is popular today was once popular with teenagers. Companies would want a lower age, obviously,” said Mishi Choudhary, legal director at the Software Freedom Law Center in New York and managing partner of Mishi Choudhary & Associates in India.
Mandavia M. (2018, July 30). Curbs on tracking minors’ data may hurt tech giants. Retrieved from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/curbs-on-tracking-minors-data-may-hurt-tech-giants/articleshow/65191301.cms
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