The Supreme Court has held that access to and use of the internet is a fundamental right for every individual, including children, and has declined to impose a blanket age-based restriction on internet access.
A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K V Chandran said on Friday that the right is protected under Article 21 read with Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. The observation was made on October 15 while the bench considered applications filed by child rights NGO Just Rights for Children Alliance and another applicant.
The applications raised concerns that social media platforms were not fulfilling their legal duty to report child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) to Indian authorities.
The court said children do not lose their constitutional rights because of their age. It observed that denying them internet access altogether would be as unreasonable as claiming that children below a particular age do not possess a conscience deserving protection or a freedom of speech deserving expression.
It also stressed that children's safety and liberty must be protected together. Instead of a complete age-related ban, the bench called for stronger parental controls, effective child-mode features on social media platforms and the prompt removal of sexual abuse material.
The court noted that children would continue using the internet even if legislation prohibited them from doing so. It therefore proposed a stricter framework focused on shielding them from online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The bench criticised the lack of earnest efforts by authorities and social media intermediaries to protect victims, while also pointing to the repeated circulation of child abuse material despite existing guidelines.
It expressed concern over allegations that CSEAM had been promoted through paid posts, redirect links and websites on social media platforms. The court said such incidents represented only a rare instance of harmful activity being identified and brought to public attention, and questioned how many more victims would have to suffer before collective action was taken.
The applicants had sought a uniform reporting mechanism, a centralised portal and measures against intermediaries that fail to comply with the law. In response, the Supreme Court directed the Centre to establish a national database containing digital identifiers and URLs associated with confirmed abusive material.
The database is intended to support the detection and removal of such content. The Centre was also asked to prepare guidelines and standard operating procedures covering perceptual hash-matching, URL listing and other technological tools for identifying and taking down the material.
The bench made clear that the internet cannot provide any space for non-consensual sexually exploitative or abusive material, especially on platforms that are easily accessible to children and other vulnerable users.
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