Supreme Court of India Pushes Centre For 18-Year Age Bar On Social Media Accounts, Citing Minors' Inability To Enter Contracts

The Supreme Court of India on September 28, 2026, directed the central government to examine whether statutory rules should prevent children under 18 from creating social media accounts without parental consent, observing that social media platforms must comply with Indian law governing minors and contracts. The petition, which raised concerns about online grooming, sexual exploitation, sextortion, cyberbullying and misuse of personal data, has prompted the Solicitor General to confirm that the Centre will consider amending IT Rules to make age restrictions and parental safeguards a statutory obligation for platforms, with the matter scheduled for further hearing in four weeks.

Under-18 account bans place the burden of compliance on every user, compliant and non-compliant alike, and require platforms to verify the age of hundreds of millions of people including adults, raising substantial privacy concerns. As a Meta Business Partner backed by Startmate, Guardii provides an alternative operational mechanism: real-time detection of the harms the Indian petition identifies—grooming, sextortion, cyberbullying and exploitation—at the point of contact across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms. By flagging harmful patterns in direct-message conversations and blocking hostile contact before it reaches the child, Guardii addresses the underlying threat without requiring blanket exclusion or universal identity disclosure, surfacing a child in acute crisis to a parent or authority and enabling rapid escalation in an emergency.