Parents find workarounds as privacy rules tighten for kidfluencers

While discussions on banning underage users from social media continue, a provision in the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025 requiring explicit parental consent to share a child’s photos or videos online has worried brands. But how these rules are applied in practice on social media is often not clearly defined or easy to enforce. As a result, parents of child influencers are navigating these grey areas to keep their children’s accounts brand-friendly. To be sure, the regulatory tightening hasn't reduced interest in child-driven engagement—it has simply changed how collaborations are structured.

Across social media platforms, parents are restructuring child-led content. For instance, accounts are increasingly operated under parents' names, with bios explicitly stating management by the mother or father. Videos are framed as family content, featuring parents alongside their children. Platforms' co-posting options further blur lines of ownership and authorship.

Take six-year-old Era Sinha, for instance, who dominated social media feeds in February 2025 when her video asking her mother not to scold her for ordering Kinder Joy chocolates via Blinkit went viral with 68.7 million views, followed by a brand partnership with the quick-commerce app. She had started gaining visibility a month earlier, when a January 2025 video on her Instagram account @little.era12_official about how she calls her mother racked up 64 million views. Her videos average 10 million views and have led to brand partnerships. Sanaya Ranjan, Era’s mother, not only manages the account but also appears in the videos, signaling parental consent and control.

“Before social media, when parents who saw potential in their children to perform well on screen tried to make them child artists through modelling gigs, ads, and film shoots, it was never criticized,” Ranjan said. “Then, why is there so much scrutiny if the child is creating content on social media?”

Under Section 9 of India’s DPDP framework, if a child is under 18, social media platforms or anyone processing their data must get verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian before collecting, using, or publishing the child’s photos, videos, or personal identifiers.

However, parent-child influencer operations exploit regulatory grey zones. Senior advocate Gauhar Mirza said, “Parental consent issues continue to be there. They try to bypass it by parents operating the account. There is still some grey area until there is some action taken by the government or MeitY (ministry of electronics and information technology).”

Even as parents navigate compliance, questions remain about the nature of consent. In many cases, children are unaware of their influencer status. The law recognizes parents as representatives of the child’s data rights, but does not clarify whether children understand or willingly participate. Mirza said, “It is not physical labour, so it cannot be a case of child labour. The criteria of age marked for physical labour is 14 years. If the child in the videos is shown doing child labour then that content is flagged.”

Brands prefer parent influencers who feature their children. “Since parents are the primary decision-makers, this approach ensures collaborations are more responsible and well-managed. We consider child-only accounts only when they are clearly operated and supervised by parents” said Riddhi Sharma, founder of BabyOrgano, an ayurvedic babycare product brand that frequently works with kidfluencers. She added that parent-child influencers deliver stronger return on investment (ROI) by building higher trust and driving more effective conversions.

India is among several governments considering restrictions or bans on social media use for underage users. Countries such as Australia and France have already announced age-based limits on children’s access to social media platforms.

Shivani Kapila, a lifestyle mom influencer based out of Surat who uploads content around parenting on her Instagram account @littleglove_aka_shivani, had left her human resources job at Google and has been pursuing social media since 2019. The baby became a part of social media before she was born, as Kapila documented her pregnancy in a joint family through her vlogs. Her daughter, Aadya Tyagi, who is four now, has her own Instagram page @littleglove_aka_baby.

However, Kapila said she prefers posting most of their videos on her own account. “Posting from my account gives me much more vigilance so most of her content goes to my account. I create content with her only if it’s absolutely necessary, fun or she enjoys it,” Kapila added, "It's too young for them to be exposed to content creation as creators, until and unless they understand what's good and bad for them, … I have seen a lot of cases where money starts dropping in, the child has a very hectic and harassing routine and is not able to enjoy the childhood he or she deserves.”

“Section 9(3) of the DPDP Act bars processing data that harms a child's well-being regardless of parental consent. Parental sign-off protects neither the brand nor the child,” said Nakul Gandhi, founding partner, NG Law Chambers.

The DPDP Act, 2023 is India's data privacy law that governs how personal data is collected, stored, and processed. It mandates consent-based handling of personal information, especially for children.

"The Act mandates identity verification, proof of parent-child relationship, and detailed consent records but offers no standardised mechanism to achieve this. In an industry running largely on informal DMs and cash deals, compliance will be selective," Gandhi added.

Jyotsna Jayaram, partner, technology, media and telecommunications at Trilegal, said, “Platforms and brands will need to ensure that consent remains informed and auditable across evolving uses, which can operationally necessitate closer and more ongoing parental involvement.”