India Supreme Court Seeks Government Reply on Age Limits and Social Media Safeguards for Children

Indore school asks for binding rules on children's accounts

India's Supreme Court has sought the Union government's response to a petition proposing restrictions on children's social media accounts, including a model that would bar accounts below 13, require parental consent and supervision from 13 to 16, and apply further safeguards from 16 to 18.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices on October 16, 2026, after Emerald Heights International School in Indore and its director of academics, Siddharth Singh Girnar, sought an enforceable national framework. The court also sought responses from the ministries of women and child development and law and justice, and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

The matter has been linked with a pending petition and listed for December 7, rather than the December 3 date initially given. The court has requested replies, with the proposed restrictions awaiting consideration.

The school, which says it has about 4,115 students, argues that parents and teachers cannot protect children alone when the services they use are built to keep them engaged. Its petition combines concerns about strangers contacting children, sexual exploitation and bullying with complaints about disrupted sleep, reduced concentration and pressure over online popularity.

The case, styled The Emerald Heights International School & Anr. v Union of India & Ors., asks the court to make child protection a binding responsibility across social media services. Its central demand reaches beyond removing harmful posts: it seeks rules governing who can open an account, how age is checked, what parents must approve and how platforms handle children's data.

What restrictions does the petition propose?

The petition asks the Centre to frame, notify and implement a dedicated regulatory framework. It also seeks a prohibition below a prescribed age and restrictions on the creation, maintenance and use of children's accounts on designated platforms.

The school sets out a graded model intended to apply different protections as children grow older:

• Below 13: children would not hold social media accounts.
• From 13 to 16: access would require verifiable consent and supervision from a parent or guardian, alongside settings designed for children.
• From 16 to 18: access would be subject to data protection and safeguards against harmful content.

The petition also calls for mandatory age verification and access suited to a child's age. Age verification means checking whether a user meets an age requirement, rather than simply accepting the date of birth entered when an account is created. Verifiable parental consent means having a way to confirm that permission actually comes from a parent or guardian.

The proposed framework leaves a major implementation question for the government and court: the final age threshold, the platforms covered and the method for checking age have yet to be decided. The petitioners say their request would preserve children's use of the internet for education, health and communication with family while restricting access to commercial social media services.

Why the school says parental controls fall short

Emerald Heights describes children below platforms' stated minimum ages operating accounts, receiving contact from strangers and arriving at school short of sleep and unable to concentrate. It says these concerns arise in its classrooms and hostels, as well as in discussions with parents.

Parents have raised worries about excessive screen time, anxiety over online popularity, body image, social withdrawal and declining interest in studies and outdoor activities, according to the petition. The school argues that adults may notice the damage only after it has become serious.

The petitioners' advocate, Khushbu Jain, said the case concerns the conditions in which children grow up and the government's responsibility to protect them:

The Constitution does not envisage a childhood defined by exploitation, distress or abandonment. It calls for children to develop in a healthy manner, in conditions of freedom and dignity. Yet the social-media environment children inhabit today is, in our submission, nowhere near the safe environment they deserve,

The school argues that parental controls and voluntary company safeguards cannot address the full problem because risks arise from how platforms operate as well as from the material posted on them. It wants duties that can be enforced across services, rather than protection that depends chiefly on each household's ability to monitor a child's activity.

The case targets platform design and data collection

The petition identifies endless scrolling, autoplay, streaks, likes and constant notifications as features that encourage prolonged use. Endless scrolling keeps presenting more posts without a natural stopping point, while autoplay starts another video without requiring the viewer to choose it.

The school argues that these features can exert particular pressure on children. A child trying to maintain a streak or track reactions to a post may repeatedly return to an app, while recommendations can continue delivering material long after the child first signed in.

Behavioural profiling is another target. This involves analysing actions such as what a person watches, likes or clicks to predict interests and decide what to show next. The petition seeks safeguards against collecting and using children's behavioural information in ways that keep them engaged for longer.

The school also challenges the role of recommendation systems when they direct harmful material to a child who never searched for it. Its legal argument places responsibility on platforms for their own design and distribution choices, alongside their handling of content uploaded by users.

What harms are being alleged?

The petition describes risks ranging from cyberbullying and impersonation to grooming, sexual exploitation, blackmail and the circulation of private images. Grooming means building trust with a child in order to manipulate or exploit them, including for sexual purposes.

Children may also face coercion involving intimate images or exposure to violent, sexually explicit, self-harm and suicide related material. The petitioners argue that these dangers require protections governing contact between users and access to content, as well as action after abuse has occurred.

Mental and physical health concerns include depression, anxiety, emotional distress, diminished self-esteem, body image dissatisfaction, disordered eating and sleep disruption. The school presents these as risks linked to children's experiences on social media and asks the government to address them through binding safeguards.

A specific figure cited in the petition comes from a 2021 NCPCR study: 37.8% of the children aged 10 who were surveyed had Facebook accounts. The school uses that finding to challenge reliance on platforms' commonly stated minimum age of 13 and on dates of birth entered by users themselves.

The constitutional argument behind the case

The school filed a public interest litigation under Article 32 of the Constitution, which allows people to approach the Supreme Court to enforce fundamental rights. Advocate Vaibhav Choudhary filed the petition, which was drafted by advocates Khusbhu Jain, Mayank Singh Rawat and Zaid Ahmed.

The petition invokes Article 14, concerning equality; Article 15(3), which permits special provisions for women and children; Article 21, protecting life and personal liberty; and Article 21A, concerning the right to education. It argues that the government's continuing failure to provide effective protection against foreseeable online harms violates children's constitutional rights.

Articles 39(e) and 39(f) also feature in the case. These are directive principles that guide government policy, including protection against abuse and opportunities for children to develop in freedom and dignity. The petition also draws on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, including children's best interests and protection against violence and exploitation.

The petitioners seek a writ of mandamus, a court order directing a public authority to carry out a legal duty. They argue that the Centre has powers to regulate digital services and should use them to create enforceable protections for children.

India's data law has a different age threshold

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats a person below 18 as a child. Its child protection provisions require verifiable parental consent before processing children's personal data and restrict tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children, subject to the law's framework.

The petition says these provisions are scheduled to take effect in May 2027. It points to the Act receiving presidential assent on August 11, 2023, and the notification of the Rules on November 13, 2025, arguing that the delay leaves children waiting for protections Parliament has already enacted.

The age of 18 in the data law and the age of 13 commonly used by platforms serve different purposes. The first defines who receives child specific protections under India's data framework. The second is a threshold platforms commonly set for opening an account. The petition asks for national rules that connect account access, age checks and data protection.

The school also argues that a child who enters an adult date of birth can escape safeguards intended for minors. Its proposed answer combines age verification with parental consent and restrictions tailored to different age groups. The Economic Survey 2025-26 has also recommended safeguards including age verification and default settings suited to users' ages.

How the case developed

The school petition follows another challenge concerning the opening and maintenance of social media accounts by minors. The Supreme Court has now linked the school case with a pending petition, bringing related demands for protection into the same proceedings.

The main dates trace the movement from a request for safeguards to a scheduled hearing:

• September 10, 2026: a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant sought the Centre's response to a related petition from a nonprofit child rights body.
• October 13, 2026: the school's petition had been filed and was awaiting a hearing date.
• October 16, 2026: Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices and linked the case with a pending petition.
• December 7, 2026: the matter is listed for further hearing.
• May 2027: the child protection provisions of the data law are scheduled to take effect, according to the petition.

During the September 10 proceedings, the bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant described the need for protection in these terms:

There is need for some safeguards in India. Some firewall is necessary for protecting our children.

The government and NCPCR responses will be central to the next stage, when the court considers demands covering account access, platform responsibilities and the timing of legal protections.

Australia and France offer different comparisons

Australia enforced a minimum age of 16 for accounts on designated social media platforms from December 10, 2025. Its approach requires companies to take reasonable steps to prevent younger children from holding accounts. The Indian petition cites restrictions affecting about 4.7 million accounts belonging to children below 16 within roughly five weeks.

France's 2023 law provided for parental authorisation for social media accounts below age 15. These examples show two different approaches in the debate: excluding younger children from designated services, or making access depend on parental approval.

The Indore school's proposed model combines age limits with parental participation and further safeguards for older teenagers. Its practical effect would vary by age: younger children would lose account access, parents of children in the middle group would have a formal consent and supervision role, and platforms would have to apply protections for older minors.

For India, the decision ahead concerns both access and responsibility. The school wants a common national framework covering services used across state boundaries, with enforceable duties on companies rather than protection resting mainly on schools and families.

Key Points

• The Supreme Court sought responses on October 16, 2026, to an Indore school's petition for binding safeguards on children's social media use.
• The bench comprised Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
• The petition proposes no accounts below 13, parental consent and supervision from 13 to 16, and further safeguards from 16 to 18.
• Its demands cover age verification, harmful content, contact from strangers, behavioural profiling and features that encourage prolonged use.
• The petition cites a 2021 NCPCR study in which 37.8% of surveyed children aged 10 had Facebook accounts.
• The next hearing is listed for December 7. The proposed restrictions await consideration.