Report calls for national policy to ban smartphones in schools

The proposal insists that tech platforms and not parents or children must face legal consequences and penalties for compliance failures.

Hyderabad: Calling for a national policy to regulate children’s digital media access, the Centre for Legal Action and Behaviour Change (C-LAB) has urged the government to implement a national policy banning smartphones in schools and restricting children’s online access. The proposal insists that tech platforms, not parents or children, must face legal consequences and penalties for compliance failures.

The report titled “Prevention By Design: From Voluntary Self-Regulation to a State Duty of Care” was launched on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The event, “Responsible AI and Safe Digital Spaces for Children,” was organised by Athena Infonomics and Just Rights for Children (JRC).

The report highlighted that digital participation is no longer a choice for children. The question that remains, it said, is whether online spaces are designed for their rights, safety, and development, and who bears responsibility for it. According to C-LAB, an Indian institution focused on child protection through the implementation of law, the study attempts to answer these questions by providing recommendations for a national-level framework. Their research spanned over 40 countries, as it compared policies and laws related to age-based restrictions on the use of digital media in over 40 countries and school phone policies in 110 countries.

Child protection has moved from being a matter of self-regulation by platforms to a “binding legal obligation of the state”, the report said.

The report, which analysed smartphone school ban policies in 110 countries, stated that as many as 52 countries have national legislative bans on smartphone use in schools, 31 more have issued national guidance directing such restrictions, and only nine leave the matter to individual schools.

It called for a ban on smartphone use throughout the school day in primary and lower secondary education.

C-LAB is one of India’s research and policy institutes and a partner of JRC, the country’s largest network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working on child protection and child support rights.

JRC founder Bhuwan Ribhu said during the launch of the report that the digital world has expanded the scale of harm, while systems for preventing it have not kept pace. “The world needs mandatory reporting and an international legal framework to address online harms that cross borders. Social media platforms cannot be allowed to place children in contracts or arrangements that undermine their rights and safety,” he said.

He added, “A child below the age of 18 cannot legally enter into a contract, and any such agreement is void ab initio.”

The report applied principles of child protection, Ribhu said, and the rule of technology itself. At the scale of digital platforms, we cannot wait for millions of harms to occur before acting – we must design systems that prevent harm and use technology to identify risks early and connect children to protection.”

The report analysed statutory frameworks on contractual obligations and parental consent in selected countries and found that India has fixed it at 18 years. “This means India treats an agreement entered into by a minor as void ab initio,” C-LAB said.