Australian authorities announced on Tuesday that social media platforms should not be required to verify the age of all users starting next December, when the country’s ban on children under 16 holding social media accounts comes into effect.
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The government issued guidelines on how platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram should implement the world’s first ban on children using social media, effective December 10. It emphasized that requiring age verification for all users would be unreasonable.
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner who drafted the guidelines, said: “We believe it would be unreasonable for platforms to re-verify everyone’s age.” Her use of the term “re-verify” implies that platforms already have sufficient data to prove that a user is over 16.
She added that platforms have “targeting technologies” that can focus on users under 16. She explained: “They can target us with deadly precision when it comes to ads. Surely they can do the same regarding a child’s age.”
The Australian Parliament passed the ban last year, giving platforms one year to establish compliance mechanisms. Platforms could face fines of up to AUD 50 million (USD 33 million) for systematic failures to prevent children under 16 from having accounts.
However, critics of the legislation worry that the ban could affect the privacy of all users who will be required to prove they are over 16. Inman Grant said claims that the ban will force all Australians to undergo age verification are merely a “scare tactic.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that the government aims to preserve user data privacy as much as possible. She added: “These platforms already know a lot about us. If you have been on Facebook since 2009, they know you are over 16. There is no need for verification.”
Wells and Inman Grant are scheduled to travel to the United States next week to discuss the guidelines with platform owners.
Inman Grant confirmed that platforms will need to demonstrate to her office that they are taking “reasonable steps” to exclude children under 16. She stated: “We do not expect every account of under-16s to magically disappear on December 10. What we will examine are systematic failures in implementing technologies, policies, and procedures.”
Lisa Given, an information science expert at RMIT University in Melbourne, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the government’s approach acknowledges that age verification technologies can make mistakes. She added: “It will be up to each platform to determine how it complies, and it will be interesting to see whether they test the limits of what constitutes ‘reasonable steps.’”
— Agencies
