The Supreme Court's October 15th order moves online child protection towards enforceable accountability. The task now is to make children's right to access the internet real without leaving them exposed to abuse.
As a parent, I sometimes wonder how quickly childhood has moved online. Children learn, play, make friends and explore worlds far beyond their neighbourhoods through a screen. But the same platform can expose them to grooming, sexting, exploitation and manipulation.
Recently, two 12-year-old children were allegedly lured through Pinterest with promises of meeting K-pop stars in Tokyo. They travelled and were later rescued near the Bhutan border. The person or network behind the alleged enticement has not been identified. The case is a stark reminder that online harm does not remain online: it can move children across borders and into real-world danger.
A click can open a classroom. It can also open a door to an offender. Yet the burden of keeping children safe has too often fallen on parents and children themselves, while the platforms that design and control these environments are not always held to account. That is the imbalance the law must address.
Turning Accountability into Action
In its order of 15 October 2026 in Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish, the Supreme Court addressed the need for a systematic response to child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM). It affirmed that digital platforms are accountable for their architecture and must also be responsible for providing a child-safe digital platform and experience, since children too, have a fundamental right to access and use the internet. The principle was clear: children must not be shunned out of the digital world; the digital world must be made accountable to them.
This is a significant shift in perspective. The child is not the problem to be managed. The offender, the harmful material and the digital world that enable abuse are. The order must be understood alongside the Court's September 2024 judgment in the same matter. Together, the decisions move the debate beyond takedown notices and voluntary platform policies towards a systemic and systematic model of detection, reporting, oversight and prevention by design.
The 2024 judgment set aside the Madras High Court's order quashing FIR in a case involving child sexual abuse material and rejected the characterisation of the conduct as mere moral decay. It held that watching, storing, possessing child pornographic material amounts to an offence. It mandated that the intermediaries cannot treat the removal of CSEAM as a substitute for mandatory reporting obligations under the law and also that the safe-harbour immunity under the Information Technology Act, is contingent upon them reporting and deletion of CSEAM.
The Court urged the use of the term “Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Material”, or CSEAM, instead of “child pornography” and asked Parliament to amend the POCSO law accordingly. With over two years of non-compliance of the above judgment, when JRC approached the Supreme Court with the magnitude and scale of CSEAM available on digital platforms, the Supreme Court was not only appalled over the non-compliance with its 2024 directions, but also laid down a catena of directions.
From Takedown to Detection: National CSEAM Accountability Framework
The Court directed the Union to develop comprehensive guidelines or standard operating procedures on architectural accountability of digital platforms - including the perceptual hash-matching, URL listing and other technological measures for detecting and removing CSEAM. It also directed the creation of a National Hash and URL List Database, with safeguards, audit trails and a mechanism to correct wrongful entries.
Court further directed that in cases of CSEAM of unknown-origin, removals must be reported to the prescribed authorities within two hours; known-origin removals must be included in consolidated weekly reports to the database authority. A standardised, machine-readable reporting format must be established to help investigators identify distribution patterns and coordinate action.
The order also addresses paywalled and subscription-based content. Intermediaries are put on notice that CSEAM and content harmful to children must not be offered or promoted through paywalls. The Union was directed consider exemplary monetary fines for relevant breaches, proportionate to gravity, duration, recurrence, platform size and turnover, and to consider whether revenue derived from misuse of paywalls should be forfeited and disgorged. The Court also directed consideration of a structured penalty framework.
Whole of System Approach
The Apex Court further went on to recognise the relevance of age appropriate positive sexual awareness amongst children. It called for awareness about consent, safe and unsafe contact, healthy relationships, privacy and online exploitation. Digital safety and age-appropriate sex education are to be integrated into the core curriculum through CBSE, NCERT and schools must display information about Child Helpline 1098, Cyber Crime Helpline 1930 and the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. Teachers and school staff must be frequently trained, while school networks should use reasonable and proportionate filters against harmful content.
The order also envisaged awareness programmes for parents and guardians, periodic platform reminders about safety settings and help options, and support mechanisms for victims, including counselling and psychological assistance. Protection is incomplete if the system removes content but leaves the child unsupported. The Court has also asked Union to make suitable amendments in the IT Act, Rules thereof or any other law currently in force.
First click is a legal relationship, not a formality
A child's account is not just a technical entry point. Platforms routinely ask users to accept terms of service and privacy policies governing data collection, communications, recommendations and access. Those terms shape an ongoing relationship between the child and the service provider.
Section 11 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, governs competency to contract, while the Majority Act, 1875, generally fixes the age of majority at 18. Section 10A of the Information Technology Act recognises contracts formed electronically; it does not independently confer contractual capacity on a minor. This raises a legitimate question: Can a child's click-wrap acceptance result in a binding contractual relationship with a digital platform?
Just Rights for Children Alliance also raised the issue of minors' contractual access in separate proceeding before the Supreme Court. The objective is not to exclude children from the internet, but to consider proportionate safeguards, legally attributable guardrails like meaningful age assurance, verifiable parental or guardian involvement, and child-appropriate digital environments to validate a child's age.
A self-declared date of birth is not meaningful age assurance, and a lengthy terms-of-service document is no substitute for a child-sensitive framework. The bench headed by Chief Justice of India observed this to be a serious issue mandating necessary firewalls and guardrails in the digital ecosystem. The objective was to enable safe participation, not deny access. The final legal position in those proceedings remains for the Court to determine.
Protection must begin before harm - and continue after it
The Court also recognized that technology alone cannot keep children safe. Its directions include age-appropriate education on consent, safe and unsafe contact, healthy relationships, privacy and online exploitation. Digital safety and age-appropriate sex education are to be integrated into the core curriculum. Schools should display details of Child Helpline 1098, Cyber Crime Helpline 1930 and the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal; teachers and school staff need regular training, and school networks should use reasonable and proportionate filters against harmful content.
Parents and guardians need practical guidance, not blame. The order envisages awareness programmes for families, periodic reminders from platforms about safety settings and help options, and support mechanisms for victims, including counselling and psychological assistance. Children must be able to report abuse without fear that they will be punished, disbelieved or held responsible for what happened to them.
Way Ahead: from Judicial Directions to a National Blueprint
The Supreme Court has placed before India the foundations of a new blueprint for digital child safety. Its promise lies in treating safety not as a platform's voluntary commitment, but as an enforceable accountability built into the digital architecture, backed by reliable detection and reporting systems, capable law enforcement, and meaningful consequences for non-compliance. India's signing of the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime on 25 September 2026 adds an important international dimension to this commitment, reinforcing the need for effective cross-border cooperation in investigating cybercrime and securing electronic evidence.
JRC's interventions before the Court have helped advance this shift from corporate assurances to an enforceable legal accountability. The next step is to translate that judicial vision into a national framework that works in practice: clear standards, accountable institutions, trained investigators, effective cross-border cooperation, and measurable outcomes.
A child's right to enter the digital world must never mean entering it unprotected.
The question is no longer whether the Digital world will shape childhood. It already is. The question is whether our laws and institutions will shape Digital world strongly enough to protect childhood. Because:
Detection without enforcement is only documentation.
Consent without legal capacity is only a checkbox.
Safety without enforceability is only a promise.
AI without accountability is only automation of risk.
Author is a Lawyer. Views are personal.