Meta has agreed to report child safety matters directly to India’s Cybercrime Reporting Portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), marking a shift from its previous method of reporting cases involving child sexual abuse material to Indian authorities. The company confirmed the move in a statement on Tuesday, following reports that Meta would flag such cases
“Protecting children on our platforms is a priority for us and we’re committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible. To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the Cybercrime portal managed by I4C,” a Meta spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The statement confirms a development that had been reported earlier in the day by multiple media outlets citing government sources that Meta had agreed to report child sexual abuse and other child-safety matters directly to Indian law enforcement agencies. The move comes amid mounting scrutiny of the company over the circulation and alleged promotion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and child sexual exploitative and abuse material (CSEAM) on its platforms, particularly Instagram.
The Indian government had earlier described Meta’s agreement as a first step towards making social media platforms safer for children, while warning that much more was needed to be done. The government sources also said that online safety of children was a “fundamental principle” for platforms operating in India and was a “non-negotiable”. The centre has been engaging with other platforms as well, seeking proactive identification and removal of harmful content.
The announcement marks a significant change in the reporting mechanism Meta had previously described for India.
In July, Meta said that when it became aware of apparent child exploitation, it reported such cases to local law enforcement through the US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The company said that, in India, NCMEC routed such reports to the national cybercrime reporting portal on Meta’s behalf, in accordance with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and accompanying rules.
The new arrangement means Meta will now report child-safety matters directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), rather than relying on that intermediary reporting route. The exact operational details, including the categories of cases covered and the timelines for submitting reports, have not yet been publicly detailed.
Increased Regulatory Pressure
The change follows several months of increasing regulatory pressure on Meta in India. In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued a notice to Meta over paid Instagram advertisements allegedly promoting or facilitating access to CSEAM. The ministry ordered Instagram to disable the advertisements and related content and sought an explanation from the company.
The issue also drew the attention of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). In July, the child rights body sought an explanation from Meta over why allegedly abusive material promoted through Instagram had not been reported to police, with the commission examining the company’s obligations under Section 19 of the POCSO Act.
The scrutiny continued into September. Senior Meta executives appeared before the NCPCR on September 9 in connection with an inquiry into allegations concerning the circulation of CSEAM on Instagram.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has also been examining the matter. It issued notices to MeitY, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Delhi Police over allegations involving paid Instagram advertisements that directed users towards Telegram channels offering CSAM.
The government’s engagement with Meta has extended beyond the immediate takedown of individual pieces of content. In August, government sources told ThePrint media company that Meta had shown increased sensitivity towards the CSAM issue following meetings with MeitY officials. The reports said that the discussions focused on compliance with Indian law and the limits of the safe-harbour protections available to intermediaries when they fail to meet their legal obligations.
Meta, for its part, has maintained that it has a zero-tolerance approach towards child exploitation. In its July statement, the company said its systems had already detected and disabled several violating advertisements and accounts before the issue was brought to its attention, and that its subsequent investigation led to further removals and blocking of related URLs. Meta also said it had removed 1,60,000 accounts in India over six months through systems designed to detect child-exploitation activity.
The immediate significance of Tuesday’s announcement, however, lies in the shift towards direct reporting to an Indian law-enforcement mechanism. India’s national cybercrime portal already has a dedicated mechanism for reporting child sexual abuse material and child- or women-related crimes.
For the government, the agreement addresses one of the central concerns raised during the recent controversy: ensuring that potentially criminal child-safety cases do not remain solely within a platform’s internal moderation and enforcement systems.
The next test will be how quickly and comprehensively the new reporting pipeline operates, and whether similar arrangements are established with other major social media platforms. The government has indicated that platforms that fail to take proactive steps to protect children online could face action.
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