The federal government is considering a “roadmap” on how to restrict access to online pornography to those who can prove they are 18 or older but there are warnings that any system could come at the cost of Australians’ privacy online.
On Friday the eSafety commissioner provided a long-awaited roadmap to the government for how to verify users’ ages online, which was commissioned by the Morrison government nearly two years ago.
The commissioner’s office said the roadmap “explores if and how age verification and other measures could be used to prevent and mitigate harm to children from online pornography” but any action taken would be a decision of government.
There were a variety of options to verify people’s ages considered during the consultation, such as the use of third-party companies, individual sites verifying ages using ID documents or credit card checks, and internet service providers or mobile phone operators being used to check users’ ages.
Digital rights groups have raised concerns about the potential for any verification system to create a honeypot of people’s personal information.
But the office said any technology-based solution would need to strike the right balance between safety, privacy and security, and must be coupled with education campaigns for children, parents and educators.
A spokesperson for the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said the government would consider the roadmap and “outline steps” in the coming months.
“We live in an era where many children have greater skills with technology than their parents – so we need a multifaceted approach to protecting children from online content that is not appropriate for them,” the spokesperson said.
“The government is progressing an ambitious work program to limit children’s access to pornography, requiring renewed effort by the digital industry.”
It comes as industry codes aimed at tackling restricted-access content online, developed by groups representing digital platforms and software, gaming and telecommunications companies were submitted to the eSafety commissioner for approval.
The content covered includes child sexual abuse material, terrorism, extreme crime and violence, and drug-related content. The commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, will now decide whether the voluntary codes meet her expectations or whether she needs to enforce mandatory codes.
Sex workers had raised concerns to the groups during the short consultation process that they did not have confidence that their views would be considered by the commissioner, and questioned why the codes were being brought in before changes to privacy law and classification codes had yet to be finalised.
“Having discussed with other community and industry stakeholders, many of us have felt discouraged by this process and are disappointed at the lack of affected community stakeholders involved in the direct development of the code,” Assembly Four, a collective of sex workers and technologists, said in its submission.
“This pattern of dismissal is concerning and does not inspire trust or confidence that the eSafety commissioner and their office has the ability to cooperate or communicate effectively with Australian end users and affected stakeholders, let alone industry.
“We would like to remind the eSafety commissioner that there is a big difference between consultation and being listened to.”
The second phase of the codes will set out how the platforms restrict access to pornography on their sites – separate from the use of age verification systems.
