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India Child Safety Laws Leave Algorithms Unchecked: NALSAR Report

Features such as infinite scroll, engagement-optimised recommendations and reward-based interactions may encourage prolonged or repetitive use. Image-heavy platforms and social comparison can affect some adolescents' perceptions of their bodies and self-worth, while recommendation systems can progressively narrow the content users encounter.

Storyboard•13-10-2026, 17:18

•A new report by NALSAR University of Law and IGAP reveals that India's current online safety laws fail to address risks posed by recommendation algorithms and infinite scrolling.
•The study emphasizes that platform designs focused on user engagement can cause cumulative psychological and behavioral harms to children, despite involving no single illegal act.
•Current legislation primarily targets individual wrongdoings and content removal, leaving engagement-driven platform architectures largely unregulated.
•The report recommends mandatory child-safety risk assessments before launching new digital products and features.
•It calls for default age-appropriate privacy settings, stricter technical scrutiny of algorithms, and a dedicated regulatory framework for online child safety.

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Key Questions Answered

A report by NALSAR University of Law and the IGAP states that India's current online safety laws fail to adequately address risks posed by recommendation algorithms, infinite scrolling, and engagement-driven design.

India's existing framework includes the Information Technology Act, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, though they largely target individual wrongdoing rather than platform architecture design.

The report recommends conducting child-safety risk assessments before launching new features, scrutinizing attention-capturing mechanisms, offering non-profiling recommendation options, and enabling age-appropriate privacy safeguards by default.