Australia won’t force social media users to distribute their personal details when kid ban takes result

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s communications minister said Wednesday the government won’t force social media users to hand over their personal information to tech companies, as children younger than 16 are set to be banned from the platforms.

Michelle Rowland plans to introduce into Parliament on Thursday globe-first legislation that would make X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram responsible for excluding Australian children younger than 16 from the platforms.

After the statement becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the ban on younger children before they face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic breaches.

How the platforms will be able to determine the ages of account holders is not yet known.

Rowland told Parliament on Wednesday the legislation will contain “robust provisions” to protect social media users’ privacy.

“This is not about government mandating any form of technology or demanding any personal information be handed over to social media companies,” Rowland said.

The government announced last week that a consortium led by British business Age Check Certification Scheme has been contracted to examine various technologies to approximate and verify ages.

In addition to removing children under 16 from social media, Australia is also looking for ways to prevent children under 18 from accessing online pornography, a government statement said.

Age Check Certification Scheme’s chief executive Tony Allen said Monday the technologies being considered included age estimation and age inference. Inference involves establishing a series of facts about individuals that point to them being at least a sure age.

“None of these methods is 100% accurate,” Allen told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Allen’s business will update back to the Australian government by the complete of June next year.

“I ponder if people comprehend the hazard and the check is carried out close to that hazard, then I ponder people generally are OK … We don’t desire our children to be exposed to extreme violent video games or to pornography or to suicide material or to things that are going to factor them problems with their mental advancement such as body dysmorphia and weight deficit and stuff like that,” Allen said.

“What people are less keen on is having to leave through ID check and verifications to access the internet generally or to do things online generally,” Allen added.

Digital Industry throng Inc., an advocate for the digital industry in Australia, described the age limit as a “20th century response to 21st century challenges.”