Meta’s latest child-safety measures in the US are drawing attention in India, where regulators and experts are weighing how age assurance, data protection and platform safety should work together without creating unnecessary privacy risks.
The settlement with a coalition of US states, approved by a judge, introduces stricter protections for users under 18 on Facebook and Instagram. These include a 2-hour daily screen-time limit, a midnight to 6 am access block and muted notifications from 8 am to 3 pm. Meta will also improve technology to detect users aged 13-17 who enter an adult date of birth.
The US framework also allows teenagers to use non-algorithmic feeds, disable autoplay and hide like counts by default. Meta will strengthen parental controls and limits on unwanted contact from adults. It will also create an independent research foundation and auditor to review compliance.
The measures follow years of US litigation over children’s social media use, including concerns about screen time, mental wellbeing and potentially addictive designs. Meta said the changes are aimed at giving parents more control and urged TikTok and YouTube to introduce similar protections. Meta Chief Legal Officer CJ Mahoney said the framework would be more effective with industry-wide adoption.
India faces a different regulatory landscape
In India, the debate comes as Meta faces scrutiny over child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and prepares for compliance with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) framework.
“The Indian DPDP framework is focused on privacy-related risks and harms,” said Aparajita Bharti, founding partner of The Quantum Hub.
The framework requires verifiable parental consent for processing children’s data and restricts targeted advertising, behavioural monitoring and profiling.
“Additional obligations arise under the DPDPA for collecting children’s information, requiring parental verification,” said lawyer Shruti Narayan. “The issue is how to ensure that children are safe online – particularly from harmful and addictive content – while not collecting more information than is necessary.”
Experts note that India’s DPDP framework does not specifically address social media addiction, mental wellbeing or screen time. The US settlement, meanwhile, directly imposes product-level restrictions.
India is also tackling CSAM through government action against social media platforms and intermediary due diligence requirements under the IT Rules.
Bharti said US measures cannot simply be transferred to India. “Copying pasting the same safety features that Meta has offered in the US across platforms in India also is not practical,” she said. “We have a different context.”
She pointed to school practices and shared devices as key differences. “The feature offered by Meta in the US about no notifications in school time is mostly irrelevant in the Indian context as most schools here anyway do not allow phones to be carried in schools,” Bharti said.
“We also have high shared device usage among teens, so perhaps safety by design principles also needs to take that into account here,” she added.
Age assurance emerges as a key challenge
Age assurance could become important for DPDP compliance because platforms need to determine whether a user is a child before applying parental consent and other restrictions. However, age checks can also involve collecting personal information.
“The solution cannot be through age verification alone. Age verification can be bypassed,” Narayan said. She called for greater transparency around content review, algorithmic data collection and independent research into social media’s impact.
Meta is already testing a voluntary age-declaration feature on WhatsApp in India, asking some users to provide their date of birth. The company says it is exploring privacy-focused ways to confirm age ahead of laws such as the DPDP Act. The test is not mandatory identity verification.
Narayan also stressed that child safety must preserve access to useful online resources. “Keeping children safe includes giving them access to the internet and online resources for education, health, and emergency services,” she said.
“The DPDPA and the DPDP Rules can help by requiring that when children’s data is collected, it is kept safe and is not used for unnecessary advertising or other purposes,” she added.
Bharti called for India-specific evidence before introducing product-level rules. “The Indian government should invest in collecting its own evidence and data on potential harms and risks faced by children online,” she said, suggesting a principles-based “wellbeing by design framework”.
“A flurry of regulation/litigation around the world around social media harms against the children has opened up space for regulators and platforms to find middle ground and incorporate safety by design in their product features,” she said.
For Meta, the Indian challenge is to meet stricter requirements around children’s data and CSAM while adapting safety measures to India’s distinct patterns of schooling, device sharing and online behaviour.
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