September 1, 2025 • 17 mins
In fewer than 100 days, under-16s in Australia will be banned from social media.
But a big question remains unanswered: how will the ban work?
The Government has released findings into age verification trials to stop children and early teens from creating social media accounts, including on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
While it says the tech is “practical” and “achievable”, the findings show privacy and accuracy issues persist.
In today’s deep dive – we’ll take you through the findings looking at whether age assurance tech will bring about the first age-specific social media ban in the world.
Listen: YouTube vs the Fed Govt
Hosts: Harry Sekulich and Emma Gillespie
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily ODS. It's Tuesday,
the second of September.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm Harry Sekulic, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In fewer than one hundred days, under sixteens in Australia
will be banned from social media. Kids and teens won't
be able to make a YouTube, TikTok or Facebook account.
But a big question remains unanswered, how will it work.
Age verification trials have been taking place over the past year,
and the government has now released its findings. In today's
(00:42):
deep Dive, we'll take you through some of the findings
and look at what will happen next.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
But before we get stuck into it, here's a quick
word from our sponsor, Harry. This social media band story
has been following us. We've been following it. It's felt
like a really long time in the making, from the
first time we ever heard about a potential social media
(01:08):
ban to the legislation passing. The ban itself is not
yet in place, but you've got a really interesting update
for us today on the age verification stuff that's been
kind of at the center of the questions around whether
or not this is going to work. But before we
talk about that, let's just rewind. Can you give us
(01:29):
a quick timeline on the big developments of late.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, this social media ban is one of those stories
where in the world of journalism you say that the
lead always updates, so the new headline comes through every
so often. You get a new top line with every
development in this story. And I guess, going back to
the very beginning's very origins, there was this really big
campaign to ban social media for under sixteen's, which was
(01:55):
mostly led by concerned parents who said that their kids
were being ex to some violent and sexually explicit content,
that social media was being used for bullying, that there
were just some harms online that they wanted to see
more protections against. And in November last year, the government
responded to some of these calls and banned social media
(02:17):
for under sixteen's, And initially there was an exemption for YouTube.
That exemption's now been overturned and that's subject to a
legal challenge, which we could go into very separately in
its own podcast. And the ban itself is scheduled to
take place on the tenth of December later this year.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, so that YouTube exemption that was reversed. We actually
did chat about that on the podcast. When that happened.
I think it was the end of June or the
start of July off the top of my head, but
will poppling to that in the show notes if you
want to get up to speed on all of that
debarcle and what unfolded there. But for now, Harry, we
know this ban is coming into effect regardless of how
(02:58):
the social media platforms feel about it. But there has
been a lot of confusion about the practicalities of this band.
It feels like there's been a collective understanding or agreement
that social media is bad for kids' mental health and
we need to do more to protect kids online. But
how's it going to work? Who will be responsible for
(03:19):
enforcing this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
When I first heard that there was going to be
a band for under sixteens, I was thinking that kids
were going to be slugged with a fine potentially for
creating an account when they're not meant to. But obviously
that's not how this is going to work, and the
government was pretty clear from the outset that it would
be on the social media companies. They would bear the
responsibility to enforce the ban. But on a practical level,
(03:44):
there is probably a few aspects to how the band
will work. So there'll be the deterrent effect. So parents
will be able to say to their kids, it's actually
illegal for you to have a social media account, and
that might have an effect of kids just not downloading
the app or whatever it might be. They just might
be dissuaded to do so. But obviously it goes beyond that,
(04:05):
and as I said, the owners will fall on the
social media companies the platforms themselves to enforce a ban,
or they would risk getting a fine, which is to
the tune of about fifty million dollars. So, for example,
if it was found that Meta was not taking enough
reasonable steps so that's the language in the legislation, reasonable
(04:26):
steps to prevent under sixteens from making an account on
their platform, they could be slugged with a fifty million
dollar fine. So the responsibility lies with them.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay, so the responsibilities on the platforms, not children or parents.
If we've got social media companies then regulating and enforcing this,
how will they and I know this is a million
dollar question, how will they verify the age of their users?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, Australia is a first country in the world to
have an age specific ban for social media. So this
is kind of a novel space. This is very much
new territory. And I think it's helpful to think of
a nightclub. When you go to a club, you need
to show proof that you are at least eighteen years old,
and I think that there are some steps being taken
(05:15):
to bring in a digital version of that for sixteen
year olds on social media.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, Harry, it's interesting you say that, because it's one
thing to be at a licensed venue in person and
be able to physically present your ID, to have a
bouncer or security person kind of check your ID, look
you up and down, decide yep, that's you. You are
free to pass. But in the digital world, in the
(05:40):
online environment, it's just a whole different story.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And that's where we get into this space of talking
about age assurance technology, which is basically verifying that you
are at least sixteen years old and able to use
social media. And so since the government announced its ban,
it said that it was going to trial so of
this technology, that it was going to get an independent
(06:03):
review into some of the tech that's available out there.
And what we have this week is the findings from
that review into existing technologies that are available. Was conducted
by British firm. It was independent of the government, and
it looked at forty eight different companies and the way
in which they detect age assurance and how they use
(06:25):
this technology.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Okay, so a pretty big pool I suppose of companies
doing the age verification staff or building this tech. But
I am really curious to know what this report found.
What were the types of tech that they looked into,
how did they work? Did they work?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So there were broadly three different categories of age assurance tech.
So the first is called verification, and this is directly
proving how old you are through official identity documents. So
think of birth certificates, passports, those things that we already
use day to day in our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Thinking of if you are applying for a new rental
and you need one hundred thousand points of IDs, that's right,
You've got to find every little document that proves who
you really are to get past the first hurdle on
your application.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And there are some platforms that already require you to
pose next to your passport photo and that way they
can determine whether your fatal fitches match up to the
passport itself. Okay, but also in Australia, the minimum age
to get a learner's license to drive is sixteen, so
that's also one way of verifying whether you are of
(07:35):
the social media ban age if you've cleared that threshold.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Because a lot of under sixteen year olds wouldn't have
on hand a lot of formal identification. Yeah, I don't
know if school library cards are going to pass the test.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, that actually taps into some of the other areas
where you can actually go through age assurance. If you've
only got a school card, then some of this tech
might actually think that you are of school age, maybe
thirteen or fourteen years old as well, So that's one
way of rooting it out. The second main age dessurance
tech is called estimation, and that's where we're getting into
(08:08):
using things like face ID to prove that you're at
least sixteen years old. So this is scanning technology that
determines whether, based on your biometric analysis, whether you are
at least sixteen. And the final area is called inference
and this is a little bit more tricky. This is
technology that uses your metadata or looks at your online
(08:31):
digital footprint to get a sense of how old you are.
This is basically taking a big overall look at how
you've been conducting yourself online and whether you fall within
a likely age range. So it might just be your
email domain, if you have like a work email address,
that would assume that you are a little bit older.
If you're on the electoral roll, you have to be
(08:53):
at least eighteen to vote, so they will cross reference
your details against that. Yeah, and there's also questions of
whether they can get data from school enrollments to determine
whether someone's in your ten or elevens, you know over sixteen.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So official channels because in my head, I'm thinking, if
you've got someone whose browser history contains like a lot
of homewares and couch options versus someone whose browser history
is streaming a lot of scivity toilet, we're probably able
to make a detection on their age from that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
It would be a really humbling experience with me being
in my late twenties was confused for being thirteen years
old on my browser You history.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That inference side is really interesting, But you mentioned estimation,
and I know that this is something that had come
up during the trial about you know, what is the
difference between a fifteen year old's face and a sixteen
year old's face. Are these kind of different categories all
about working together with each other to form a more
(09:55):
thorough picture of age verification or will platforms kind of
pick and choose one.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Each Well, it's all part of what is being thrashed
out at the moment, and this goes to what the
legislation requires, which is the reasonable step. So they might
go to these third party platforms which verify or estimate
someone's age as a way of blocking anyone who's under
sixteen from making an account. But also some of these
(10:21):
platforms already use this type of verification. Meta already uses it,
so if they're harnessing it to stop people under sixteen
from getting into that platforms, that might be considered a
reasonable step. It depends what the E Safety Commissioner determines
before the December deadline.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So, Harry, there's a big recurring question here around privacy
whenever we think about the social media platforms. Privacy is
obviously something that matters to users, but it's especially delicate
here because we're talking about under eighteen year olds and children.
Did the report say anything about that.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, it looked into some of the pretty genuine concerns
about privacy breaches that could occur, especially when we're thinking
about the inference technology. So that's using the online footprint
to sort of build an estimation of someone's age. And
the report actually warned that some continuous behavioral monitoring online
could lead to overstepping an ethical mark. So it said
(11:19):
that there needed to be some ground rules and regulation
to make sure that if the inference technology was to
be used, that it is safe and that it doesn't
lead to this ongoing effect.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The other main issue that was brought up in the
report was accuracy. So what if the technology accidentally starts
locking people out who are over sixteen and actually able
to use social media under the law.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Or similarly approves people who are under sixteen because it
might think they look eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So the trials found that some of the tech could
mismatch someone's age and what it called a buffer zone,
and that's about two to three years. So that means
that someone who's seventeen might be confused for a fourteen
year old or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Okay, so this report is acknowledging some of the shortcomings
of this tech, and it's saying that there is a
bit of a buffer zone. That feels kind of difficult
because if it's a buffer zone of two to three years,
you know, the experts are telling us that that's a
critical age, those two to three years between you know,
fourteen to eighteen. So I'm sure there'll be people watching
(12:21):
that one closely.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And the language and the report says that based on
its trials, the way in which the estimations have occurred
are within what they call the acceptable range. Okay, so
that means that there aren't enough inaccurate estimations of someone's
age to cause too much alarm based on the report's findings,
but it is still you know, once you roll this
(12:43):
out on mass to every teenager and child in Australia,
like that does become a bit more of a pressing
issue lasting I just note on accuracy. There was this
really interesting note in the report as well about some
issues with non Caucasian user is, including that First Nations
peoples are underrepresented when training this data, so there could
(13:08):
actually be an inbuilt bias to the system, which is
something that we've heard about with face ID scanning technology
before as well, and so the report said that there
was a bit of awareness among the age assurance companies
as well that this is a shortcoming and that this
is something that they need to look further into as well.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Fascinating so having more diversity across the trials to understand
the data better on a more diverse range of users.
We are talking, though, Harry, about a generation that's grown
up online, right, We're also talking about teenagers. When you
consider those two things together, you can't help but wonder
(13:51):
is this generation that will find its way around age
verification technology. Did the research consider that?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, And the standout thing to me was the use
of virtual private networks which are also known as VPNs
to dodge the rules. And the reason it sort of
picked up my interest is because recently in the UK
there was a ban on pornography websites for under eighteen's
and so they rolled out this age deshurance technology and
(14:21):
all of a sudden there was just an uptick in
the number of people downloading VPNs.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
And so there's a learning there for Australia exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So the report basically recommended to get around the issue
of VPNs, which basically makes you appear as though you're
in another country where the rules don't apply, and that's
where you change what's known as your IP address. But
there's geolocation technology that can detect an inconsistency. So if
your IP address and your regional patterns are not lined up,
(14:54):
then this type of technology could pick up on that, okay,
And it's already been used in some context as well,
so it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Is possible to identify if someone changes their VPN in
Australia but has an Australian IP address. I think that
that's really interesting and will probably be some relief for
policymakers and parents alike to know that that exists, because
if a workaround exists, we can expect teenagers to find it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
That's right. Overall, the government says that it's quite reassured
by the findings that it's workable, it's scalable, and there
is going to be a bit of a trial and
error when rolling out the technology, but it's acknowledged there's
not really a one size fits all approach that is
appropriate when considering getting kids off social media. But the
(15:45):
report does give a bit of a rundown of what
we can expect from the tenth of December. You might
need to show your passport, you might need to scan
your face to see if this technology picks up that
you're over sixteen, or there might be an app that
scans your search history, your online footprint to see how
old it thinks you are. And the fact that they're
still not fully sure how the technology is going to
(16:07):
work has been picked up this week by the opposition.
So the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa Macintosh said that the
report has come ten seconds to midnight, adding that the
report is not the final step by any means. The
Safety Commissioner now needs to have a look at the
findings and then advise the social media companies on what
will form the best practice for them, and all the
(16:30):
while the bean is just under one hundred days away.
So TikTok punintended.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Sure was Thank you so much, Harry. It's so interesting
because I think, you know, we hear about this ban
and it might feel far away for some of us,
you know, for those of us who are shockingly over sixteen.
That's my secret. I'll never tell. But you know, anyone
who has a log in across these platforms is hypothetically
going to be affected. Right, we will, I imagine on the
(16:56):
tenth of December, all have to verify in some way
at our place on these apps.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Unless we've been on there for as long as I have,
then I hope they just know that I'm well and truly.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Is not maths sing. This guy's over sixteen. Harry, thank
you as always for that breakdown. We really appreciate your guidance.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Thanks Sam, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And thank you for listening to today's episode. We'll be
back a little later on with your evening news headlines,
but until then, have a great day.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Adunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily ODS. It's Tuesday,
the second of September.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm Harry Sekulic, I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
In fewer than one hundred days, under sixteens in Australia
will be banned from social media. Kids and teens won't
be able to make a YouTube, TikTok or Facebook account.
But a big question remains unanswered, how will it work.
Age verification trials have been taking place over the past year,
and the government has now released its findings. In today's
(00:42):
deep Dive, we'll take you through some of the findings
and look at what will happen next.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
But before we get stuck into it, here's a quick
word from our sponsor, Harry. This social media band story
has been following us. We've been following it. It's felt
like a really long time in the making, from the
first time we ever heard about a potential social media
(01:08):
ban to the legislation passing. The ban itself is not
yet in place, but you've got a really interesting update
for us today on the age verification stuff that's been
kind of at the center of the questions around whether
or not this is going to work. But before we
talk about that, let's just rewind. Can you give us
(01:29):
a quick timeline on the big developments of late.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, this social media ban is one of those stories
where in the world of journalism you say that the
lead always updates, so the new headline comes through every
so often. You get a new top line with every
development in this story. And I guess, going back to
the very beginning's very origins, there was this really big
campaign to ban social media for under sixteen's, which was
(01:55):
mostly led by concerned parents who said that their kids
were being ex to some violent and sexually explicit content,
that social media was being used for bullying, that there
were just some harms online that they wanted to see
more protections against. And in November last year, the government
responded to some of these calls and banned social media
(02:17):
for under sixteen's, And initially there was an exemption for YouTube.
That exemption's now been overturned and that's subject to a
legal challenge, which we could go into very separately in
its own podcast. And the ban itself is scheduled to
take place on the tenth of December later this year.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Okay, so that YouTube exemption that was reversed. We actually
did chat about that on the podcast. When that happened.
I think it was the end of June or the
start of July off the top of my head, but
will poppling to that in the show notes if you
want to get up to speed on all of that
debarcle and what unfolded there. But for now, Harry, we
know this ban is coming into effect regardless of how
(02:58):
the social media platforms feel about it. But there has
been a lot of confusion about the practicalities of this band.
It feels like there's been a collective understanding or agreement
that social media is bad for kids' mental health and
we need to do more to protect kids online. But
how's it going to work? Who will be responsible for
(03:19):
enforcing this?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
When I first heard that there was going to be
a band for under sixteens, I was thinking that kids
were going to be slugged with a fine potentially for
creating an account when they're not meant to. But obviously
that's not how this is going to work, and the
government was pretty clear from the outset that it would
be on the social media companies. They would bear the
responsibility to enforce the ban. But on a practical level,
(03:44):
there is probably a few aspects to how the band
will work. So there'll be the deterrent effect. So parents
will be able to say to their kids, it's actually
illegal for you to have a social media account, and
that might have an effect of kids just not downloading
the app or whatever it might be. They just might
be dissuaded to do so. But obviously it goes beyond that,
(04:05):
and as I said, the owners will fall on the
social media companies the platforms themselves to enforce a ban,
or they would risk getting a fine, which is to
the tune of about fifty million dollars. So, for example,
if it was found that Meta was not taking enough
reasonable steps so that's the language in the legislation, reasonable
(04:26):
steps to prevent under sixteens from making an account on
their platform, they could be slugged with a fifty million
dollar fine. So the responsibility lies with them.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay, so the responsibilities on the platforms, not children or parents.
If we've got social media companies then regulating and enforcing this,
how will they and I know this is a million
dollar question, how will they verify the age of their users?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Well, Australia is a first country in the world to
have an age specific ban for social media. So this
is kind of a novel space. This is very much
new territory. And I think it's helpful to think of
a nightclub. When you go to a club, you need
to show proof that you are at least eighteen years old,
and I think that there are some steps being taken
(05:15):
to bring in a digital version of that for sixteen
year olds on social media.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, Harry, it's interesting you say that, because it's one
thing to be at a licensed venue in person and
be able to physically present your ID, to have a
bouncer or security person kind of check your ID, look
you up and down, decide yep, that's you. You are
free to pass. But in the digital world, in the
(05:40):
online environment, it's just a whole different story.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And that's where we get into this space of talking
about age assurance technology, which is basically verifying that you
are at least sixteen years old and able to use
social media. And so since the government announced its ban,
it said that it was going to trial so of
this technology, that it was going to get an independent
(06:03):
review into some of the tech that's available out there.
And what we have this week is the findings from
that review into existing technologies that are available. Was conducted
by British firm. It was independent of the government, and
it looked at forty eight different companies and the way
in which they detect age assurance and how they use
(06:25):
this technology.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Okay, so a pretty big pool I suppose of companies
doing the age verification staff or building this tech. But
I am really curious to know what this report found.
What were the types of tech that they looked into,
how did they work? Did they work?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So there were broadly three different categories of age assurance tech.
So the first is called verification, and this is directly
proving how old you are through official identity documents. So
think of birth certificates, passports, those things that we already
use day to day in our lives.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Thinking of if you are applying for a new rental
and you need one hundred thousand points of IDs, that's right,
You've got to find every little document that proves who
you really are to get past the first hurdle on
your application.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
And there are some platforms that already require you to
pose next to your passport photo and that way they
can determine whether your fatal fitches match up to the
passport itself. Okay, but also in Australia, the minimum age
to get a learner's license to drive is sixteen, so
that's also one way of verifying whether you are of
(07:35):
the social media ban age if you've cleared that threshold.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Because a lot of under sixteen year olds wouldn't have
on hand a lot of formal identification. Yeah, I don't
know if school library cards are going to pass the test.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Well, that actually taps into some of the other areas
where you can actually go through age assurance. If you've
only got a school card, then some of this tech
might actually think that you are of school age, maybe
thirteen or fourteen years old as well, So that's one
way of rooting it out. The second main age dessurance
tech is called estimation, and that's where we're getting into
(08:08):
using things like face ID to prove that you're at
least sixteen years old. So this is scanning technology that
determines whether, based on your biometric analysis, whether you are
at least sixteen. And the final area is called inference
and this is a little bit more tricky. This is
technology that uses your metadata or looks at your online
(08:31):
digital footprint to get a sense of how old you are.
This is basically taking a big overall look at how
you've been conducting yourself online and whether you fall within
a likely age range. So it might just be your
email domain, if you have like a work email address,
that would assume that you are a little bit older.
If you're on the electoral roll, you have to be
(08:53):
at least eighteen to vote, so they will cross reference
your details against that. Yeah, and there's also questions of
whether they can get data from school enrollments to determine
whether someone's in your ten or elevens, you know over sixteen.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So official channels because in my head, I'm thinking, if
you've got someone whose browser history contains like a lot
of homewares and couch options versus someone whose browser history
is streaming a lot of scivity toilet, we're probably able
to make a detection on their age from that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
It would be a really humbling experience with me being
in my late twenties was confused for being thirteen years
old on my browser You history.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
That inference side is really interesting, But you mentioned estimation,
and I know that this is something that had come
up during the trial about you know, what is the
difference between a fifteen year old's face and a sixteen
year old's face. Are these kind of different categories all
about working together with each other to form a more
(09:55):
thorough picture of age verification or will platforms kind of
pick and choose one.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Each Well, it's all part of what is being thrashed
out at the moment, and this goes to what the
legislation requires, which is the reasonable step. So they might
go to these third party platforms which verify or estimate
someone's age as a way of blocking anyone who's under
sixteen from making an account. But also some of these
(10:21):
platforms already use this type of verification. Meta already uses it,
so if they're harnessing it to stop people under sixteen
from getting into that platforms, that might be considered a
reasonable step. It depends what the E Safety Commissioner determines
before the December deadline.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So, Harry, there's a big recurring question here around privacy
whenever we think about the social media platforms. Privacy is
obviously something that matters to users, but it's especially delicate
here because we're talking about under eighteen year olds and children.
Did the report say anything about that.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, it looked into some of the pretty genuine concerns
about privacy breaches that could occur, especially when we're thinking
about the inference technology. So that's using the online footprint
to sort of build an estimation of someone's age. And
the report actually warned that some continuous behavioral monitoring online
could lead to overstepping an ethical mark. So it said
(11:19):
that there needed to be some ground rules and regulation
to make sure that if the inference technology was to
be used, that it is safe and that it doesn't
lead to this ongoing effect.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The other main issue that was brought up in the
report was accuracy. So what if the technology accidentally starts
locking people out who are over sixteen and actually able
to use social media under the law.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Or similarly approves people who are under sixteen because it
might think they look eighteen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
So the trials found that some of the tech could
mismatch someone's age and what it called a buffer zone,
and that's about two to three years. So that means
that someone who's seventeen might be confused for a fourteen
year old or vice versa.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Okay, so this report is acknowledging some of the shortcomings
of this tech, and it's saying that there is a
bit of a buffer zone. That feels kind of difficult
because if it's a buffer zone of two to three years,
you know, the experts are telling us that that's a
critical age, those two to three years between you know,
fourteen to eighteen. So I'm sure there'll be people watching
(12:21):
that one closely.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
And the language and the report says that based on
its trials, the way in which the estimations have occurred
are within what they call the acceptable range. Okay, so
that means that there aren't enough inaccurate estimations of someone's
age to cause too much alarm based on the report's findings,
but it is still you know, once you roll this
(12:43):
out on mass to every teenager and child in Australia,
like that does become a bit more of a pressing
issue lasting I just note on accuracy. There was this
really interesting note in the report as well about some
issues with non Caucasian user is, including that First Nations
peoples are underrepresented when training this data, so there could
(13:08):
actually be an inbuilt bias to the system, which is
something that we've heard about with face ID scanning technology
before as well, and so the report said that there
was a bit of awareness among the age assurance companies
as well that this is a shortcoming and that this
is something that they need to look further into as well.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Fascinating so having more diversity across the trials to understand
the data better on a more diverse range of users.
We are talking, though, Harry, about a generation that's grown
up online, right, We're also talking about teenagers. When you
consider those two things together, you can't help but wonder
(13:51):
is this generation that will find its way around age
verification technology. Did the research consider that?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, And the standout thing to me was the use
of virtual private networks which are also known as VPNs
to dodge the rules. And the reason it sort of
picked up my interest is because recently in the UK
there was a ban on pornography websites for under eighteen's
and so they rolled out this age deshurance technology and
(14:21):
all of a sudden there was just an uptick in
the number of people downloading VPNs.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
And so there's a learning there for Australia exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So the report basically recommended to get around the issue
of VPNs, which basically makes you appear as though you're
in another country where the rules don't apply, and that's
where you change what's known as your IP address. But
there's geolocation technology that can detect an inconsistency. So if
your IP address and your regional patterns are not lined up,
(14:54):
then this type of technology could pick up on that, okay,
And it's already been used in some context as well,
so it.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Is possible to identify if someone changes their VPN in
Australia but has an Australian IP address. I think that
that's really interesting and will probably be some relief for
policymakers and parents alike to know that that exists, because
if a workaround exists, we can expect teenagers to find it.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
That's right. Overall, the government says that it's quite reassured
by the findings that it's workable, it's scalable, and there
is going to be a bit of a trial and
error when rolling out the technology, but it's acknowledged there's
not really a one size fits all approach that is
appropriate when considering getting kids off social media. But the
(15:45):
report does give a bit of a rundown of what
we can expect from the tenth of December. You might
need to show your passport, you might need to scan
your face to see if this technology picks up that
you're over sixteen, or there might be an app that
scans your search history, your online footprint to see how
old it thinks you are. And the fact that they're
still not fully sure how the technology is going to
(16:07):
work has been picked up this week by the opposition.
So the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa Macintosh said that the
report has come ten seconds to midnight, adding that the
report is not the final step by any means. The
Safety Commissioner now needs to have a look at the
findings and then advise the social media companies on what
will form the best practice for them, and all the
(16:30):
while the bean is just under one hundred days away.
So TikTok punintended.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Sure was Thank you so much, Harry. It's so interesting
because I think, you know, we hear about this ban
and it might feel far away for some of us,
you know, for those of us who are shockingly over sixteen.
That's my secret. I'll never tell. But you know, anyone
who has a log in across these platforms is hypothetically
going to be affected. Right, we will, I imagine on the
(16:56):
tenth of December, all have to verify in some way
at our place on these apps.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Unless we've been on there for as long as I have,
then I hope they just know that I'm well and truly.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Is not maths sing. This guy's over sixteen. Harry, thank
you as always for that breakdown. We really appreciate your guidance.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Thanks Sam, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
And thank you for listening to today's episode. We'll be
back a little later on with your evening news headlines,
but until then, have a great day.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Adunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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