Login
iscover
Share this article on:
Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
Powered by MOMENTUMMEDIA
New codes aim to protect children from inappropriate content such as pornography and violent content.
The Australian eSafety Commissioner has registered the first three of nine new codes structured to protect children from accessing inappropriate content.
The codes cover search engines and enterprise hosting and internet carriage services.
“These three codes needed to create a high level of protections, especially for kids, to be registered,” eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a recent statement.
“In particular, the fact [that] the search engine code has achieved this is incredibly important as search engines are often the windows to the internet for all of us.”
While the first three codes go a long way towards protecting children from content such as pornography, suicide and self-harm, and violent material, Inman Grant is hoping the codes to come will cover social media platforms, app stores, and device manufacturers.
“It’s critical to ensure the layered safety approach, which also places responsibility and accountability at critical chokepoints in the tech stack, including the app stores and at the device level, the physical gateways to the internet where kids sign up and first declare their ages,” Inman Grant said.
The commissioner also hopes to strengthen protections around children’s use of AI.
“We are already receiving anecdotal reports from school nurses that kids as young as 10 are spending up to five hours a day with AI chatbots, at times engaging in sexualised conversations and being directed by the chatbots to engage in harmful sexual acts or behaviours,” Inman Grant said.
“We need industry to be building in guardrails that prevent their chatbots [from] engaging in this type of behaviour with children.
“Industry indicated last week they would seek to make some of these changes shortly. I will consider these changes, and I aim to make my final determination by the end of next month. If I am not satisfied [that] these industry codes meet appropriate community safeguards, I will move to developing mandatory standards.”
All three codes were submitted by their respective industries and are enforceable by the eSafety Commissioner. Civil penalties of up to $49.5 million per breach may be applied by the commissioner.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
Be the first to hear the latest developments in the cyber industry.
