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New Delhi, May 13 : The Government today informed the Delhi High Court today that government departments should comply with the ISO 27001 for usage of Facebook and other social networking sites else officers will have to face Civil and Criminal Liability for Non Compliance.

In an affidavit filed before a bench headed by Justice BD Ahmed, the Additional Solicitor General(ASG) Mr Rajiv Mehra said that Social Networking sites do not permit children below 13 years of age for opening accounts or assessing their websites.

Affidavit further says such sites generally verify the age and obtained the permission of the parents of the children below 13 years of the age.

On the contrary terms of the Facebook do not permit opening of accounts by Children below 13 years and for Google Plus agreements consent of parent required for the children from age 13 to 18.

Seeing the discrepancy in the Government the Court directed Government Advocate Mr Sumit Puskarna to filed fresh affidavit by May 22.

The lawyers for Facebook Inc and Google Inc- both US based companies- were present in the court today and sought one week time to file their reply.

Earlier, in another case no one from both US companies of Google and Facebook appeared in the court as the American companies informed the Indian Government that such proceedings are against US laws which protects freedom of speech.

The case pertains to a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) filed by Govindacharya who demanded recovery of all direct and indirect taxes from the social networking sites operating from foreign countries and evading paying of taxes here.

Govindacharya through his lawyer Virag Gupta also sought protection of data being taken by the US companies and demanded that government offices should be banned from using social networking sites as there is high risk of crucial data to be transferred to the foreign land.

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HC directs Govt to clarify whether students below 13 can join social networking sites