eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant says social media platforms will have no excuse for not complying with the ban on under-16s. Photo: eSafety.
Social media platforms will not be required to verify the ages of all their users when the ban on children’s use comes into effect in December, but they will need to show they are doing everything necessary to remove the accounts of under-16s.
The Federal Government has released the much-anticipated regulatory guidelines for the social media ban on children under 16 and says there will be no excuse for non-compliance.
It has gone for a “lighter approach” towards how the platforms verify the ages of their users and is trying to avoid them having to collect more data than necessary.
But the platforms will have to satisfy the eSafety watchdog that they have taken “reasonable steps” to keep children off their sites.
Releasing the guidelines on Tuesday (16 September), Communications Minister Anika Wells said social media companies will have had 12 months to work out how they will comply with the new laws in Australia.
“They have no excuse not to be ready,” Ms Wells said.
“Age assurance technology is used increasingly and increasingly prolifically among social media platforms for other purposes, predominantly commercial purposes, to protect their own interests.
“There is no excuse for them not to use that same technology to protect Australian kids online.”
She said platforms must take reasonable steps to detect and deactivate underage accounts, prevent re-registration, and provide an accessible complaint process for their users.
“We cannot control the ocean, but we can police the sharks, and today we’re making clear to the rest of the world how we can do this,” Ms Wells said.
“We want these rules and the delivery of these laws to be as data minimising as possible to make sure people’s data is as private as possible.”
However, she added that social media companies already know a great deal about their users, so there will be no excuse for not keeping children off their platforms.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the ban will likely not be immediately applied by most companies as they will have to reconfigure technologies and introduce new processes.
And she wants to hear complaints from the public if they are aware of platforms that allow children under 16 to continue using them.
“We will, of course, triage and send them to the appropriate platform,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“That is why we have asked platforms to make discoverable and responsible reporting tools available because we know people will be missed.
“If we detect that there is a really egregious oversight, or too much is being missed, then we will talk to the companies about the need to retune their technologies.”
Key expectations for platforms include:
- detecting and deactivating or removing existing underage accounts with care and clear communication
- preventing re-registration or circumvention by underage users whose accounts have been deactivated or removed
- taking a layered approach to age assurance to minimise end-user friction, minimise the risk of error rates and provide user choice
- providing accessible review mechanisms for users who believe they’ve been wrongly flagged
- avoiding reliance on self-declaration alone, which is not considered sufficient to meet the legal obligation, and
- continuously monitoring and improving systems to track effectiveness, improve measures over time and provide the public and regulators with transparent information about age assurance practices.
The eSafety Commissioner is not prescribing specific technologies or measures companies must adopt, and platforms will not be required to retain personal data from age checks.
The social media minimum age legislation specifically prohibits platforms from compelling Australians to use government ID to prove their age online.
The regulatory guidance says platforms may offer it as an option as part of their layered approach if they choose to, but they must also always provide a reasonable alternative.
“We also note this is going to be a monumental event for a lot of children,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“A lot of children welcome this, as certainly parents do.
“But we know this will be difficult for kids and so we have also released today our commitment to protecting and upholding children’s digital rights and recognising that they, their parents and educators, will continue to need education and resources to prepare them for this moment and that is precisely what we are prepared to do.”
