The upcoming rules of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act should allow basic tracking of children on social media platforms beyond what is needed to ensure their safety and parental observation, global head of safety at Meta Antigone Davis said.
In an interaction with ET, Davis said allowing some tracking of children even on social media intermediaries is needed to ensure that a child does not end up talking to a stranger or is presented with age-inappropriate content.
“We also use the tracking of behaviour to determine how to resource our systems. The way I can describe it is how they use the behaviour of electricity users at the grid level to determine where to surge power and where to pull it back so everybody has their light on,” Davis said.
As per the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, passed and promulgated last year in August, all internet intermediaries, including social media platforms, are barred from tracking the digital footprint and behaviour of children and showing them advertisements based on such behavioural tracking.
Though the government is likely to give exemptions to some instances where the safety and security of users below the age of 18 is concerned, experts have said that the rules are unlikely to go beyond the ambit of the Act, which prohibits behavioural tracking of children.
Platforms and companies such as Meta need such tracking data to determine how to manage their resources to ensure fast services for everyone while also ensuring that the content being shown to users, especially children and teenagers, is personalised and relevant to their interests, she said.
“You certainly do not want a 16 or 17-year-old girl to get (content) that is relevant only for a 55-year-old male. That is probably not going to give them the most appropriate experience. We need to make sure that we can still do that sort of personalisation (for our users),” Davis said.
The DPDPAct has defined all users below the age of 18 as children and mandates that all social media intermediaries must obtain verifiable parental consent before allowing children to be online on their respective platforms.
Meta may also introduce video and audio guidance support for parents on the family help centres across its platforms to ensure that they have a complete understanding of the request raised by their children and whether to consent to that or not, she said.
“We are going to adjust our family centre based on the feedback from parents. We are starting with built-in protection (for children) and if they (children) want to do something additional, they are going to have to go to their parents for that permission,” Davis said.
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“We also use the tracking of behaviour to determine how to resource our systems. The way I can describe it is how they use the behaviour of electricity users at the grid level to determine where to surge power and where to pull it back so everybody has their light on,” Davis said.
As per the provisions of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, passed and promulgated last year in August, all internet intermediaries, including social media platforms, are barred from tracking the digital footprint and behaviour of children and showing them advertisements based on such behavioural tracking.
Though the government is likely to give exemptions to some instances where the safety and security of users below the age of 18 is concerned, experts have said that the rules are unlikely to go beyond the ambit of the Act, which prohibits behavioural tracking of children.
Platforms and companies such as Meta need such tracking data to determine how to manage their resources to ensure fast services for everyone while also ensuring that the content being shown to users, especially children and teenagers, is personalised and relevant to their interests, she said.
“You certainly do not want a 16 or 17-year-old girl to get (content) that is relevant only for a 55-year-old male. That is probably not going to give them the most appropriate experience. We need to make sure that we can still do that sort of personalisation (for our users),” Davis said.
The DPDPAct has defined all users below the age of 18 as children and mandates that all social media intermediaries must obtain verifiable parental consent before allowing children to be online on their respective platforms.
Meta may also introduce video and audio guidance support for parents on the family help centres across its platforms to ensure that they have a complete understanding of the request raised by their children and whether to consent to that or not, she said.
“We are going to adjust our family centre based on the feedback from parents. We are starting with built-in protection (for children) and if they (children) want to do something additional, they are going to have to go to their parents for that permission,” Davis said.
