Govt asks Big Tech platforms to trial manage age-gating on their own

New Delhi: The ministry of electronics and information technology has asked Big Tech players to comply with section 8(4) of the digital personal data protection act (DPDP Act) and come up with their own solutions to manage age-gating, or age restrictions, on their platforms on a trial basis, according to three people aware of a meeting between the two sides on creating rules and regulations on age-gating on Thursday.

“The government has asked them to comply with section 8(4) … After discussions it was decided that they don’t want to be prescriptive since there can be technology advancements or changes and hence more solutions can come up,” said one of the people who was part of the meeting, but did not want to be named.

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Another person said the approach has been taken since the discussions did not lead to common ground. “They couldn’t come to a consensus on a government-driven mechanism to establish the rules, and have asked the tech companies to come up with their own mechanisms on a trial basis to see what works,” the second person said, requesting anonymity as the discussions were not public.

Rules and regulations

Section 8(4) of the DPDP Act, 2023 puts the onus on companies, which include the likes of Meta, Google, Snap, X (formerly Twitter) and others, to come up with “appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure effective observance of the provisions” of the law.

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At present, the DPDP Act has defined the legal age of children as 18. Users below 18 years have to get verifiable parental consent for using social media or other intermediary services. So far, the Centre had suggested the use of Aadhaar, or the DigiLocker document storage platform, to be potentially used to verify the age of children and seek parental consent to use the respective social media platforms. However, a senior government official said that such proposals have not worked out fully so far—thereby leaving them to ask the social media intermediaries to come up with their own solutions.