Children have a fundamental right to the internet, Supreme Court rules, rejecting blanket bans

The Supreme Court has held that the right to access and use the internet is a fundamental right of every person, children included, and that the failure of tech platforms to clear child sexual abuse material cannot be turned into a reason to keep children offline.

“The safety of our children and their freedom are not at odds with each other,” a bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and K Vinod Chandran said. “Our children are entitled to both.”

The ruling, in an order dated 15 October, grounds the right in Article 21 of the Constitution read with Article 19(1)(a), which covers the freedom to receive and share information. Denying children the internet altogether would be unreasonable, the bench said. “For many children, particularly in remote areas, it is often the only source of learning and information.”

Aim at the harm, not the child

The case came from the NGO Just Rights for Children Alliance, which told the court that intermediaries were still failing to deal with child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) two years after the court’s September 2024 judgment on the subject. The bench agreed there had been “no progress worth the name”, and noted reports of such material being promoted for money through redirect links and websites.

Protective measures, it said, have to target the material and the people behind it. “To keep the child away from the internet on account of such failures would be to mistake the victim for the problem.”

The court said this did not rule out proportionate safeguards such as parental oversight, content restrictions or a “child mode” for social media accounts, which it suggested as an alternative to age-based bans.

What the Centre and platforms must do

The bench told the Union government to set up a National Hash & URL List Database used only to detect and take down CSEAM. Material will go through several levels of checks, with a final assessment by at least three trained human analysts, before its hash or web address is entered. Platforms must then disable and remove matching content at once, without running their own verification.

The Centre has to frame guidelines on hash-matching and URL lists for all significant social media intermediaries, and file an affidavit setting out the technology platforms now use to find such material. Companies must display their grievance officers’ details prominently, let users report abuse within two steps, and leave final decisions to trained officers rather than automated tools.

The court asked the government to consider exemplary fines linked to the seriousness and repetition of failures and to a company’s size and turnover, and said revenue earned from such material behind paywalls should be forfeited.

It also wants digital safety and age-appropriate sex education, including consent, safe and unsafe touch and how to report abuse without fear, made part of the core school curriculum by NCERT and the state councils, along with teacher training, parent awareness programmes and free counselling for victims.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Centre. The government has to file a progress affidavit before the case returns on 10 December.