We have arrived at a crucial inflection point, where a global groundswell of government interest is converging with technological innovation, to help protect all children from online harms.

Australia is at the epicentre, with legislation requiring certain social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent children under the age of 16 from having accounts, coming into effect by the end of this year.

The Commissioner will provide more details about the journey to implement this novel and complex legislation and its broader holistic approach to keeping children safe online.

As eSafety works towards implementing this legislation, these efforts will be supported by systemic regulatory powers.
This multi-faceted approach includes our first phase of enforceable industry codes which tackle the most harmful online content including child sexual abuse material across social media services, app stores, search engines, hosting services, device manufacturers and internet service providers.

Following the Commissioner’s decision that the industry-drafted codes for certain other tech sectors did not provide appropriate community safeguards, eSafety developed world-first industry standards designed to require relevant companies to prevent their products being misused to store and distribute this harmful material.

These standards, which have come into force since the Commissioner last addressed this conference, cover chat and messaging services, as well as file and photo storage services like Apple iCloud, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. They also cover ‘nudify apps’ and chatbots that use generative AI to create sexualised images and descriptions without effective controls to prevent the generation of material such as child exploitation and abuse content. The online marketplaces that offer generative AI models are also captured by the requirements.

eSafety is also working with industry on the second tranche of codes that will protect children from exposure to pornography and other high-impact online content they are not cognitively or emotionally ready to see.   

These codes and standards – plus our transparency powers and our work to investigate and remediate harm under our complaints schemes – will work in tandem with the social media minimum age legislation to provide an umbrella of protection for children and young people.

The Commissioner will highlight these developments and share ways the law enforcement community may continue working with eSafety to help target its powers effectively, reducing the online threat surface and preventing exploitation and abuse.