India charts new path to reduce online harms to children with age verification

As in digital identity, India is charting an unexplored course in pursuit of goals shared with nations around the world on keeping children from online harms.

CMS Induslaw Partner Shreya Suri explained the implications of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) for businesses and Indian internet users, both children and adults, in a Biometric Update webinar on “Age Verification in India: Technology, Policy, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act” this week.

“When we talk about consent, there are two layers,” she explains. “One is taking consent from the data principal. The second layer is where the data principal, or the person whose data is being processed, is a minor.”

The DPDPA therefore introduces age assurance requirements for organizations serving Indian customers or users over the internet, due to its requirement for online services to collect “verifiable parental consent” to process children’s data. But what that means in implementation is still being decided.

Social & Media Matters CEO Pratishtha Arora described a change in India’s internet culture over the past decade, from limited access and widely-shared fears to a different set of fears based in large part on increased access.

Iain Corby, ED of the Age Verification Provider’s Association (AVPA) shared early lessons from the implementation of the UK’s Online Safety Act, some of which could help inform policy decisions in India. He also pointed out that the one ready example of requiring parental consent for online data processing elsewhere in the world, California’s COPPA, uses a system that would likely not comply with the DPDPA.

Biometric Update Reporter and Analyst Joel R. McConvey noted that in these early days of the market, age assurance providers have yet to come to grips with how to localize their services to solve for common challenges in different legal and social contexts. Critics have also pointed out features of India’s internet culture that are different from places like the UK and California add further complications, both social and practical.

Click here to watch this webinar for free on-demand.

Article Topics

age verification  |  AVPA  |  biometric age estimation  |  biometrics  |  Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act  |  India  |  India age verification  |  webinar