The Hindu: New Delhi: Wednesday, 19 November 2025.
In the draft rule regarding consent mechanism, persons with disabilities had been clubbed with children; activists hail separation of Sections in the notified rules, but raise concern over lack of clarity on laws of guardianship
Following pushback over
the course of this year from disability rights activists, the Electronics and
Information Technology Ministry has made changes to the Digital Personal Data
Protection Rules, 2025, to separate persons with disabilities from a rule that,
in a draft, clubbed them with children for the sake of consent by a guardian.
While disability rights activists, who referred to the clubbing as the “infantilisation” of persons with disabilities, hailed this change in the notified rules, they said their concerns over the provisions remain. The notified rules do not contain illustrations on implementation to cover a range of instances where disabled people may or may not be able to use the Internet freely. Further, the language of the 2023 DPDP Act continues to group children and persons with disabilities together.
The DPDP Act, 2023, and the rules significantly restrict what minors can do online, such as setting up a social media account, without a parent’s consent. In the draft rules, this requirement was spelled out in detail in a section that included persons with disabilities, causing concern among disability rights groups. They argued that the Act and the draft unnecessarily required guardian consent for all types of data collection by websites.
Nipun Malhotra, of the Nipman Foundation, which has been advocating for changes to this Act and rules, said it was a “major victory” to have the Sections governing consent mechanisms for children and persons with disabilities separated. “The restrictions relating to behavioural monitoring, tracking, targeted advertising that apply to children do not apply to persons with disabilities anymore. These are useful features for persons with disabilities,” he said.
However, Mr. Malhotra noted that concerns remain regarding the practicalities of implementing the rules and the language in the principal Act, where children and persons with disabilities are included in the same section. “How the rules will be implemented and what will be clarified in due course. This is anybody’s guess,” he said.
The part of the rules that deals with consent for children’s data includes multiple illustrations of different scenarios under which consent should be obtained, along with a schedule that exempts and clarifies these requirements. While the separation of the Sections has clarified that these restrictions will not be applicable to persons with disabilities, the Section for persons with disabilities does not have any illustrations to capture the nuances of how guardianship operates, a key issue with the draft rules as pointed out in a report by the policy think tank PACTA and the NGO Saksham Disability.
Another issue pointed out by activists and civil society organizations was that the draft rules did not clarify which law of guardianship for persons with disabilities either the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999, or the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 would be considered for implementation.
The Saksham report had raised concerns about this, given that under the NT Act, the need for guardianship is partly determined by a person’s “decision-making capacity,” a term that the 1999 law does not clearly define. This, activists say, is not in consonance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, while guardianship under the RPWD Act is.
It further noted that small surveys had shown that not many persons with disabilities were aware of the law under which their guardianship is registered.
The notified rules, while creating a separate Section, have left the language in the Section for persons with disabilities unchanged. In Section 11 of the notified rules, they continue to provide for implementation in cases of guardianship under both the NT Act and the RPWD Act.
Mr. Malhotra said that the rules have defined “designated authority” in relation to guardianship as one governed by the RPWD Act, 2016. “But there remains the contradiction because further down in defining persons with disability, the rules provide for persons with physical disability as well. This contradicts because guardianship under the RPWD Act does not provide guardians for people with physical disabilities.”
In the draft rule regarding consent mechanism, persons with disabilities had been clubbed with children; activists hail separation of Sections in the notified rules, but raise concern over lack of clarity on laws of guardianship
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| Representative image. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto |
While disability rights activists, who referred to the clubbing as the “infantilisation” of persons with disabilities, hailed this change in the notified rules, they said their concerns over the provisions remain. The notified rules do not contain illustrations on implementation to cover a range of instances where disabled people may or may not be able to use the Internet freely. Further, the language of the 2023 DPDP Act continues to group children and persons with disabilities together.
The DPDP Act, 2023, and the rules significantly restrict what minors can do online, such as setting up a social media account, without a parent’s consent. In the draft rules, this requirement was spelled out in detail in a section that included persons with disabilities, causing concern among disability rights groups. They argued that the Act and the draft unnecessarily required guardian consent for all types of data collection by websites.
Nipun Malhotra, of the Nipman Foundation, which has been advocating for changes to this Act and rules, said it was a “major victory” to have the Sections governing consent mechanisms for children and persons with disabilities separated. “The restrictions relating to behavioural monitoring, tracking, targeted advertising that apply to children do not apply to persons with disabilities anymore. These are useful features for persons with disabilities,” he said.
However, Mr. Malhotra noted that concerns remain regarding the practicalities of implementing the rules and the language in the principal Act, where children and persons with disabilities are included in the same section. “How the rules will be implemented and what will be clarified in due course. This is anybody’s guess,” he said.
The part of the rules that deals with consent for children’s data includes multiple illustrations of different scenarios under which consent should be obtained, along with a schedule that exempts and clarifies these requirements. While the separation of the Sections has clarified that these restrictions will not be applicable to persons with disabilities, the Section for persons with disabilities does not have any illustrations to capture the nuances of how guardianship operates, a key issue with the draft rules as pointed out in a report by the policy think tank PACTA and the NGO Saksham Disability.
Another issue pointed out by activists and civil society organizations was that the draft rules did not clarify which law of guardianship for persons with disabilities either the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999, or the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 would be considered for implementation.
The Saksham report had raised concerns about this, given that under the NT Act, the need for guardianship is partly determined by a person’s “decision-making capacity,” a term that the 1999 law does not clearly define. This, activists say, is not in consonance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, while guardianship under the RPWD Act is.
It further noted that small surveys had shown that not many persons with disabilities were aware of the law under which their guardianship is registered.
The notified rules, while creating a separate Section, have left the language in the Section for persons with disabilities unchanged. In Section 11 of the notified rules, they continue to provide for implementation in cases of guardianship under both the NT Act and the RPWD Act.
Mr. Malhotra said that the rules have defined “designated authority” in relation to guardianship as one governed by the RPWD Act, 2016. “But there remains the contradiction because further down in defining persons with disability, the rules provide for persons with physical disability as well. This contradicts because guardianship under the RPWD Act does not provide guardians for people with physical disabilities.”
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