The comments around the under 16 media ban seem to be missing a salient point.
In order to determine if a user is under 16, you need to determine that for every single user … including you!
This means that your personal data will be harvested in order to determine if you are over 16 or not.
Ummm, they already harvest your personal data to that extent. I guess some of the really paranoid might be caught in the wider net but honestly if you’re that paranoid then you’re probably not using social media directly anyway. The media too is bringing up this point in that it’s a privacy concern but the internet is far less private than 99% of people think anyway, it’s a data security concern but not a privacy concern.
Now, the recent age-checking for porn introduced by the e-Karen without any parliamentary or even media debate, that’s something to be concerned about.
imo there’s a big difference between a world where privacy is uncommon and one where privacy is unattainable
I dunno where you are getting your discussion from, but those points have come up very frequently.
In ICT circles, sure, on the nightly news it’s crickets.
How is it being enforced in Australia?
A webcam photo by the website or a specific third party service, ID verification through a “trusted third party” process, or a checkbox to confirm age?
How much information does the website get over and above “user is over 16 years old”, and how much does the government get, if any?
Explain your reasoning, please.
We know very little beyond:
- It will go live on 10 December 2025
- There will be heavy fines.
- Government ID is not allowed to be the only method.
- A self declaration (tick box) is insufficient as a check.
There are to my knowledge no third party providers approved for this legislation. The process to assess actual implementation details started in July 2025, and the results thus far are underwhelming to put it mildly, you might call it a shitshow.
Below is the official sum total of what we know, most of it motherhood statements and “coming soon”.
https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions
Media commentary wants to “protect the children”, but have no idea how you might do so, let alone consider the implications or implementation details.
Source: I’m an ICT professional with 40+ years experience.
They’ll use machine learning to determine based on your behaviour if you’re under 16, then they’ll ask for proof of age. They are required to have multiple options and none of them are allowed to be a checkbox. Sites are also supposed to take measures against circumvention by VPN whatever that means. You can easily circumvent this by not creating an account, unless you rely on the YouTube subscription feed like I do (though I’ve got a fallback now).
I personally support the idea of restricting social media, but banning accounts is the complete opposite of what’s needed. The algorithm should be what’s banned.
Good luck with using AI. The training dataset will be polluted, and so will the data of individual accounts.
My TV is signed into YouTube as me, but all my kids use it to watch Minecraft videos. Google probably knows my age by now, and all this will get flagged as typical viewing for a millenial.
They’ll use machine learning to determine based on your behaviour if you’re under 16, then they’ll ask for proof of age.
Thank you for making my point.
