NEW DELHI: Nine in 10 Indian parents favour the draft digital personal data protection rules (DPDP), 2025, which propose that online platforms, like social media, OTT, and online gaming, identify minor accounts with age misrepresentation by either seeking parental consent or shutting such ‘fake’ accounts, a nation-wide survey has found.
The survey also found that 58% of parents support using profile and content consumption information to determine accounts with age misrepresentation and use AI to identify age-misrepresented accounts of children.
The survey by LocalCircles revealed that some parents said many children falsely represent their age when signing up on the platforms. With no checks and balances on most platforms, children can quickly sign up and use them.
Most parents believe that for the DPDP regulation to be effective, it is critical that the existing accounts where children use social media, online gaming, and OTT platforms as adult users are called out, consented to, reconfigured for appropriate use, or shut down.
Parents in the survey hoped that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which released the draft rules on January 3 after a 16-month wait and invited public inputs via the MyGov portal by March 5, would plug the loopholes that place minors at risk, LocalCircles founder Sachin Taparia told this paper.
The survey, which received over 44,000 responses from parents located in over 349 districts, said 88% of parents said the government should make it mandatory for companies to identify minor accounts with age misrepresented and proactively either seek parental consent or shut such accounts.
Citing an earlier survey, which had found that one in two urban Indian parents said their children are addicted to social media, OTT and online gaming platforms, which are making them aggressive, impatient and lethargic, the latest survey found that many children misrepresent their age to get access to them.
So they asked parents if they approve of companies using profile information, user content consumption patterns, and friend lists to identify accounts of minors with misrepresented ages. Again, the answer was in favour of companies taking this action.
The US Federal Trade Commission recently finalised the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule on collecting and using children’s personal data.