India Supreme Court Questions Minors' Social Media Access, Asks Government to Act

On September 29, 2026, India's Supreme Court questioned how minors are able to open social media accounts and asked the central government to address the issue under existing laws, warning that platforms could face directions if action is not taken. A bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant heard a public interest litigation filed by the Just Rights for Children Alliance seeking safeguards to prevent minors from opening or operating accounts on platforms including X and Instagram. The petition lists the risks as online grooming, sexual exploitation, trafficking, behavioural profiling, misuse of personal data, cyberbullying and exposure to harmful content, and sought to restrain platforms from allowing anyone below 18 to open an account until fresh guidelines are framed. The court observed on September 10 that firewalls are necessary for protecting children.

Raising the statutory age for account creation addresses who may lawfully register but not how offenders reach the children who remain online, nor does it prevent contact migration to platforms outside regulatory jurisdiction once trust is established. Guardii, operating in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other services, detects the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than reading every message: its anti-grooming module flags sustained targeting and escalating pressure before coercion succeeds, its anti-sextortion filter intercepts financial or image-based extortion as the demand emerges, and its CSAM detection including AI-generated material identifies distribution at the point of contact, enabling rapid escalation to the appropriate authority in an emergency and surfacing a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional positioned to intervene.