Online sexual grooming of children and the need for new private laws with special reference to the right to be for gotten

Abstract

Children and adolescents are perceived to be more vulnerable to online sexual solicitation and abuse than adults due to their lack of digital skills or awareness of privacy risks, a cause for growing concern among parents and policymakers alike. This paper primarily focuses on grooming as a specific sexual offence and explores the need for creating new private laws such as invasion of privacy and the right to delete information that no longer serves any legitimate purposes. The study systematically analyses the legal and policy framework in India and the European Union for protecting children’s privacy and dignity online with a special focus on investigating the realms of the right to erasure online. This work adopts both descriptive and doctrinal research to analyse the correlation between awareness of children’s right to be forgotten and allied rights among the respondents of various age groups. The study reveals that there’s a difference in the opinion of male and female of India regarding children’s right to be forgotten on the internet. This paper suggests that the use of a single formula to protect children’s privacy and dignity online is incomplete until effective parental monitoring coupled with felicitous legislation are not implemented.