Supreme Court Gives Centre Last Chance to Respond on Child Sexual Abuse Material Online

On September 24, 2026, the Supreme Court of India issued a final opportunity to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Law and Justice to file responses detailing steps taken to curb child sexual exploitation and abuse material distributed by social media intermediaries. The bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran acted on an application filed by Just Rights for Children Alliance and Bachpan Bachao Andolan following media reports that Instagram had carried paid advertisements promoting CSEAM. The Court directed the government to place on record the steps taken to implement its 2024 judgment mandating platforms to report CSEAM to local police and juvenile authorities, and to specify what preventive measures will be taken to prevent future lapses by intermediaries. Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj informed the Court that the government had initiated proceedings against one of the companies.

When algorithmic recommendation systems continue to surface exploitative material despite mandatory reporting requirements already in force, the failure lies not in the statute but in the absence of real-time detection at the point of contact. Guardii operates upstream of distribution: its anti-grooming and anti-CSAM detection modules analyse the shape and seriousness of a direct-message conversation as it unfolds, blocking or flagging hostile contact before it reaches a child and surfacing material that meets statutory reporting thresholds to the platform and, where configured, to the appropriate authority. This is targeted intervention, not retrospective takedown. Backed by Startmate and operating as a Meta Business Partner, Guardii enables platforms to meet their obligation to prevent harm before it occurs, rather than waiting for a regulator to ask why it did not.