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Prominent domestic and global companies like Jio, Meta, Google, Disney Star, and others under the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) want the government to modify the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill 2021. 

Firstly, they say the age requirement of 18 years would obstruct the industry’s growth, as it tries to provide tailored information and entertaining content to children. 

They want the law to approach the age of consent based on risk (depending on the nature of service) and consider how other countries define the term child. For example, the EU Data Protection Regulation mandates an age of 16, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of the US has an age threshold of 13, and in France, it is 15.  

Secondly, IAMAI says requiring a data fiduciary to verify a child’s age could create new privacy risks. Hence it wants age verification self-declarative. However, it has also objected to the proposed bill’s ban on data fiduciaries’ advertisements targeting children, saying it assumes that all of them are harmful to the kids. 

IAMAI has also called it untenable as such a prohibition would mean depriving the children of services related to their physical and emotional well-being.  

The Bill proposal says, “Every data fiduciary is barred from profiling, tracking, behavioral monitoring, and directing advertising directly at children and undertaking any other processing of personal data that can cause significant harm to the child.”

Lastly, the companies want parental consent not to be prescriptive. They think it could result in a chilling effect or discourage children from exercising their legal rights fearing legal action. So one of IAMAI’s suggestions is to remove the parental consent requirement. 

They want the guidelines to encourage children and parents to engage with transparency and privacy tools while service providers work on a broader range of technical solutions to ensure it. 

However, suppose the law retains parental consent. In that case, IAMAI wants the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to allow users who have already consented to data processing access to their accounts without additional parental consent. 

Reference: Business Standard

TNV Opinion: While contesting the proposed data protection bill, IAMAI companies seem more concerned about their business than the well-being of children. Age threshold and verification, parental consent, and barring advertisements directed at children create a safety firewall for children from getting exposed to unscrupulous content and services. Diluting the law for the sake of the industry to grow is imprudent.