Beyond Safe Harbour: The Supreme Court’s Evolving Framework for Children’s Online Safety
The Supreme Court’s 15 October 2026 order in Just Rights for Children Alliance v. S. Harish (2026 INSC 1149) is more than a child-safety ruling. For general counsel (GCs), it raises questions about platform liability, content moderation, advertising revenue and compliance systems. The Court has challenged two common approaches: restricting children’s internet access to avoid online harm and relying on intermediary safe harbour without complying with statutory obligations.
The first concerns access. The Court recognised the right to access and use the internet as a fundamental right under Articles 21 and 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, including for children irrespective of age. It rejected blanket restrictions as unproven and disproportionate, arguing that safeguards must target harmful content and those responsible for it and not the children themselves. Proportionate measures remain possible, including parental oversight, child-specific settings and restrictions on harmful content. The message to platforms is clear: child safety must be achieved through effective safeguards and not through exclusion.
The second concerns safe harbour. Under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 intermediaries who qualify are immune from liability for third-party content, provided that they meet certain conditions. The Court, in the 2024 judgment, clarified that mere compliance with Section 79 does not absolve of the mandatory reporting requirements under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Rules. The 14 August 2026 order repeated that reporting to the US-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children does not replace reporting to the Special Juvenile Police Unit or local police in India.
The October order goes further by directing the Union government to develop a National Hash & URL List Database of confirmed child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) and standard operating procedures for hash matching by significant social media intermediaries. Every intermediary should have a dedicated CSEAM grievance officer or team, a separate reporting category within two steps and a response to reports within 24 hours. If the material is from an unknown source, the police report must be submitted within two hours of removal or of the resolution of a complaint.
Advertising is also another area of concern. The Court directed that the content of paywalled and subscription based content be subjected to strict scrutiny and that CSEAM be not hosted, promoted or circulated through such content. It also asked the government to consider forfeiture and disgorgement of revenue from such material. These are guidelines for further implementations and not an automatic penalty for every platforms and advertisers.
The order moves child safety from a content-moderation concern to a wider question of corporate accountability. Platforms must consider not only what content they remove, but how they detect it, report it and prevent its monetisation. The next challenge for GCs will be to convert the Court’s orders into effective compliance systems before gaps in implementation become legal and reputational liabilities.
