India weighs mandatory KYC, age checks for online social platforms

India could tilt toward greater digital identity-anchored online safety and age assurance to enforce restrictions with the release of a new report.

The Committee on the Empowerment of Women tabled its fourth report on Cyber Crimes and Cyber Safety of Women in both Houses of Parliament. The report calls for mandatory identity verification across major online platforms, expanded intermediary liability, and a new unified cybercrime law.

These proposals could result in wide changes in India’s digital governance. Central to the proposals is shifting from voluntary to mandatory KYC‑based identity verification for all social media, dating, and gaming platforms.

If adopted, the recommendation would turn intermediaries into active identity verifiers, which could mean losing online anonymity, and lead to deeper integration of digital identity systems in everyday online interactions.

The committee’s report draws on submissions from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and major platforms including Google, Meta and X. None of the companies publicly opposed mandatory KYC, instead pointing to existing verification tools and moderation workflows, according to MediaNama.

On AI harms, the report calls for statutory backing for MeitY’s deepfake‑metadata advisories, and considers whether platforms should be required to deploy AI‑based cyberbullying detection tools. In February, India tightened rules around deepfakes on social media, requiring platforms to identify, label and trace AI-generated content using deepfake detection tools.

The committee recommends expanding law enforcement and creating fast‑track courts for crimes such as NCII, deepfakes and impersonation, among other recommendations.

India considers age‑tiered restrictions for under‑18s on social media 

The Indian government is not seeking an outright ban on social media for children and is instead mulling a graded, age‑based framework for users under 18, senior officials said. That would mean implementing age verification, facial age estimation or age inference to determine which category users belong in.

According to reporting by The Indian Express, the proposal would see different restrictions applied to children aged 8–12, 12–16, and 16–18. The plan is expected to be introduced as a separate law in the monsoon session of Parliament (around the third week of July).

While the IT Ministry has internally discussed limiting children’s access to specific hours of the day, officials said Cabinet‑level conversations have focused on calibrated curbs rather than prohibitions. “We are in favour of restrictions, not a ban,” one official told The Indian Express, responding to recent moves by the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka to bar social media use for younger teens.

Measures under consideration include time‑based limits — such as blocking log‑ins during evenings or nights — and daily usage caps, which are similar to rules adopted in China for online video games. Any such system would rely on platforms collecting parental consent.

India’s Economic Survey 2025–26 recommended age‑based limits on social media and digital advertising aimed at children, citing worries about addiction, earlier this year. It suggested promoting simpler devices for young users and enforcing content filters to reduce exposure to violent, sexual or gambling‑related material.

Officials said any forthcoming law would prioritize “citizen safety.” Meta has said it will comply with state‑level bans but noted that restrictions should apply uniformly across platforms to avoid pushing teens toward unregulated sites.

Technology companies also warn that differing state rules, such as Andhra Pradesh’s proposed cutoff at 13 and Karnataka’s at 16, could create compliance inconsistencies and make state‑level geo‑blocking difficult.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, based in Delhi, said blanket bans are a disproportionate response that overlook deeper issues such as platform design, weak data protection norms, and poor digital literacy infrastructure. It also warned that in India such bans could worsen the digital gender divide by giving families a pretext to restrict girls’ access to the internet altogether.

In Asia, Indonesia has barred under 16s from accessing social media while Malaysia is preparing age verification rules for social media that could be the world’s strictest.

Article Topics

age verification  |  data privacy  |  digital identity  |  India  |  KYC  |  online dating  |  social media  |  video games