Platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Snapchat, and X may face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (£26 million) under the law if they don’t stop minors under the age of 16 from making accounts.
With 34 votes in favor and 19 against, the bill was approved by the Senate. By a vote of 102 to 13, the House of Representatives passed the measure on Wednesday.
Before sanctions are imposed, platforms will have a year to work out how to execute the restriction.
Privacy safeguards are strengthened by the revisions. Platforms will not be permitted to demand digital identity through government systems or to ask users to present government-issued identification, such as driver’s licenses or passports.
The revisions are expected to be approved by the House on Friday. The law’s opponents worry that preventing minors under 16 from using social media might compromise the privacy of users who are required to provide proof of age.
Mental health professionals concurred that the ban might severely alienate many kids who rely on social media for assistance, according to Senator David Shoebridge of the Greens, the party’s minority.
“This policy will hurt vulnerable young people the most, especially in regional communities and especially the LGBTQI community, by cutting them off,” Shoebridge told the Senate.
“The core focus of this legislation is simple: It demands that social media companies take reasonable steps to identify and remove underage users from their platforms,” Kovacic said. “This is a responsibility these companies should have been fulfilling long ago, but for too long they have shirked these responsibilities in favour of profit,” the Opposition Senator added.
The ban could however strain Australia’s relationship with key ally the United States, where X owner Elon Musk, a central figure in the administration of president-elect Donald Trump, said in a post this month it seemed a “backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians”.
A spokesperson for Meta said the Facebook owner respected Australian law, but it was “concerned” about the process, which “rushed the legislation through while failing to properly consider the evidence, what industry already does to ensure age-appropriate experiences, and the voices of young people.”
How will the ban be executed ?
A number of possible strategies are being considered. One uses biometric age estimation, which asks users to submit a video selfie that is examined for characteristics associated with age. In order to estimate age without keeping personal information, the data is analyzed and then erased. Another choice is document-based age verification, in which users provide a third-party service with papers such as a birth certificate or passport, and the provider generates a verification token to verify the user’s age anonymously. A third approach uses data cross-checking to infer age by examining a user’s email or account activity and contrasting it with accounts that are already known.
After Effect for this execution !
Additionally, the trial will evaluate the efficacy of these techniques against popular workarounds, including appearance-altering filters or phony papers, and will reject solutions that are unable to stop attempts at scaling circumvention. In an effort to test the technology’s resilience, participants will actively attempt to “fool” it.
Lawmakers and social media corporations will use the trial findings as a guide when putting the legislation into effect. By the middle of 2025, the Australian government will get recommendations from the British consulting business, Age Check Certification Scheme, which is in charge of the procedure. The scheme’s CEO, Tony Allen, said that although there is no one ideal approach, the goal is to offer a number of efficient options that satisfy strict requirements for precision, privacy, and usability.
Concerns about social media’s effects on teens’ mental health and use of personal data are widespread, which is why this project was launched. Other nations will be eagerly watching Australia’s decision, which might establish a precedent for the world. Minimum age limits for social media have been established by several US states and European countries, but implementation has been hampered by concerns about free speech and privacy.
