Parents don’t always know best: The problem with gatekeeping children’s internet access

For today’s children, the internet is the first playground – a space where they learn, explore, and leave their first digital footprints. Yet, as parents eagerly document these moments with love and pride, an unintended digital shadow begins to follow their children, a shadow they neither chose nor control. In this delicate balance between parental pride and privacy lies the urgent need for a rights-based approach to safeguard children’s rights in the digital age.

The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025, announced last week require parental consent before processing the personal data of children. While this approach ensures oversight, it risks excluding children from decisions about their data and overlooks the challenges parents face in navigating digital environments.

The approach to verifiable consent exclusively through parents or guardians risks falling short of recognising the realities of modern digital parenting and children’s evolving capacities.

Legal scholar Georgina Dimopoulos has criticised the notion that children are incapable of making rational decisions, arguing that this perspective undermines their agency. Just as adults have a right to “decisional privacy”, so too should children. It is crucial that children are involved in decisions that affect their privacy and rights.

This reflection is deeply informed by my research on digital parenting behaviour in India, conducted…

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