Stop kids below 13 from opening FB accounts: HC

The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the Centre to come out with some law or methodology to prevent persons aged below 13 years from opening Facebook accounts.

The Delhi high court on Wednesday asked the Centre to come out with some law or methodology to prevent persons aged below 13 years from opening Facebook accounts.

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“We have to save our children. It is seen that adults are luring innocent children online and luring them into activities which are illegal”, a bench headed by justice BD Ahmed told the centre.

“In the United States, there is a preventive law which has fixed 13 as the threshold age. In India too some age can be fixed keeping in mind the social conditions”, the court said.

The court asked how Indian children below 18 years are allowed to open account because as per Indian law, a contract cannot be signed by anyone aged less than 18 years.

The court was hearing a petition filed by former BJP ideologue KN Govindacharya alleging permission granted to a minor was against Indian Majority Act, Indian Contract Act and Information and Technology Act.

Centre’s counsel Sumeet Pushkarna submitted that social networking sites do not permit children below 13 years to open accounts but no technology existed to verify the age of the applicant. “Even if we had to control Facebook, there was a jurisdictional issue as the social networking site’s server is in US and it is also registered there.”