Protecting Children Online in Australia: A Practical Plan

An Australian View: If You Cannot Prove You Are an Adult, You Should Not Access Adult Content

By Anthony Hamilton

I grew up in an Australia where some rules were straightforward.

You could not drive legally without a licence. You could not walk into a pub, order alcohol and expect the publican to accept your word that you were old enough. If there was doubt, you produced identification. If you could not prove your age, you did not get access.

It was not a perfect system, but everybody understood the principle. Adult activities carried adult responsibilities, and the person supplying the restricted product had a duty to check.

That is why I find Australia’s present debate about children, mobile phones, social media and online pornography so frustrating. We have turned a basic principle into a complicated argument involving governments, regulators, overseas technology companies, algorithms and different forms of age estimation.

To me, the starting point remains simple: if you cannot reliably prove you are 18 or older, you should not be able to access legally restricted adult material.

That does not mean taking phones away from children. It does not mean preventing young Australians from calling their parents, contacting emergency services, completing schoolwork or communicating with friends. A telephone is a useful tool and, in an emergency, it can be a lifeline.

The problem is not that a child has a telephone number. The problem is that we have allowed one device to become an almost unrestricted doorway into adult environments without building a reliable gate at the entrance.

The Australian Government tells us it is acting. We now have social-media age restrictions and enforceable codes covering pornography, search engines, app stores, some games, messaging platforms and artificial-intelligence services. But announcing a restriction is not the same as making a child safe.

As Australians, we should be entitled to ask: Does the system actually work, who is accountable when it fails, and what happens to our private information along the way?

Children should still be able to have a phone

There appears to be some confusion about whether children can have their own telephone numbers. They can.

A child’s mobile service may be held in a parent’s name, operated under a family plan or activated as a prepaid service. The Australian Communications and Media Authority explains that telecommunications companies must collect information such as a customer’s name, date of birth and address and perform identity checks when activating a prepaid mobile service.

That existing system presents an opportunity.

We could distinguish between having access to communications and having verified adult status. A child’s phone could provide calls, messages, maps, school services and emergency access while the associated account remains recorded as belonging to, or being used by, a minor. When that person turns 18 and proves their identity, the account could be updated to confirm adult status.

An adult website would not need the person’s name, home address, licence number or exact date of birth. It would receive only the answer it needs: this user is verified as over 18, or this user has not been verified as over 18.

It is similar to presenting proof of age at a pub. The purpose is to establish eligibility, not to give the publican a permanent record of every detail on your licence and a list of everything you did after entering the premises.

A verified mobile account should not be the only pathway. Not every adult has a driver licence or personal mobile telephone. Australians should also be able to prove their age through a passport, proof-of-age card or another accredited credential. The important point is that all approved options should follow the same national privacy and security standards.

Our laws should protect people who do not have standard identification, including vulnerable Australians, without reducing the age restriction to a meaningless button asking, “Are you 18?”

What Australia’s rules currently do

Australia’s Age-Restricted Material Codes are intended to prevent children from accessing online pornography and other material rated R18+ or X18+, as well as high-impact violence and certain content associated with suicide, self-harm and disordered eating.

According to the eSafety Commissioner’s official factsheet, the codes apply across services including adult websites, social media, search engines, app stores, online games and some AI chatbots. The strongest age-checking obligations apply to services presenting the highest risks.

The intention is sound. Children should not accidentally encounter pornography while using a search engine, and an adult website should not be able to rely on a child simply declaring a false birth date.

Importantly, eSafety says the codes do not stop adults accessing lawful age-restricted material. They also do not require one particular verification method or compel every person to use government identification. Service providers have flexibility to select an approach they consider appropriate and proportionate.

That flexibility is also where problems can arise.

One website may ask for a credit card. Another may seek a photograph and estimate a person’s age from their face. An app store might rely on account information. A search engine may blur restricted results until the user logs in and confirms they are an adult. Some overseas pornography businesses have reportedly chosen to block Australian visitors rather than implement Australia’s requirements.

That is not one clear Australian system. It is a patchwork.

The danger of confusing activity with results

Government announcements often concentrate on actions: accounts removed, codes registered, penalties increased and investigations commenced.

Those things may be necessary, but they do not prove that children are safer.

If a young person is removed from a large social-media platform, what happens next? Do they remain offline, or do they move to a smaller platform with weaker moderation? Do they use an adult’s account? Do they enter a false date of birth? Do they move into private messaging groups where grooming and exploitation are harder to detect?

Reporting on Snapchat’s implementation noted the company’s warning that facial age estimation can be inaccurate by several years and that young users may migrate to smaller services. That warning does not mean Australia should abandon restrictions. It means we must test whether the restrictions reduce harm instead of merely shifting it elsewhere.

The public deserves evidence about outcomes.

Has accidental exposure to pornography declined? Are fewer children being contacted by predatory adults? Have reports of sextortion fallen? Are recommendation systems sending less self-harm material to vulnerable teenagers? Are children receiving a faster response when they report threats?

These results should be measured independently and reported publicly. A government should not be allowed to declare success simply because a platform removed a large number of accounts.

Pornography is only part of the risk

When Australians discuss online harm, pornography attracts much of the attention. It is an important issue, particularly when children encounter violent or degrading content without searching for it. The eSafety Commissioner says research found that one in three young people who had seen online pornography first encountered it unintentionally before the age of 13.

But the wider risk is not limited to explicit images.

Children can be exposed to grooming, bullying, scams, identity theft, violent material, eating-disorder promotion and content encouraging suicide or self-harm. Artificial intelligence can create convincing fake images, impersonate people and generate sexualised material. A child’s own photograph can be manipulated without consent.

There is also the daily commercial pressure created by online product design. Many platforms are built to keep users engaged for as long as possible. Endless scrolling, notifications, streaks, likes and personalised recommendations are not accidental features. Attention produces data and advertising revenue.

For a child, that system can become difficult to escape. A young person showing interest in dieting, sadness or body image may progressively receive more extreme material because an algorithm has learned what keeps them watching. The system does not necessarily understand wellbeing. It understands engagement.

Real protection therefore requires more than checking a birth date when an account is opened.

Services used by children should start with protective settings. Unknown adults should not be able to contact minors freely. Precise location should be private by default. Children’s personal information should not feed targeted advertising systems. Recommendation engines should be tested for pathways that repeatedly drive young people towards more extreme content.

Reporting should also be simple. A frightened child should not have to navigate an automated maze to report blackmail, sexual threats or impersonation. Serious reports need timely attention from trained people, and evidence must be preserved for police where a crime may have occurred.

Privacy cannot be treated as an inconvenience

Some people respond to privacy concerns by saying that anyone wishing to view adult material should simply provide identification. That sounds straightforward, but it overlooks a serious risk.

Australia has experienced major data breaches involving personal records. A driver licence or passport is not just proof of age. It is a valuable identity document that can be exploited long after a password is changed.

If Australians are required to upload identification separately to numerous websites, we create more databases, more points of failure and more attractive targets for criminals.

The eSafety Commissioner says providers must continue to comply with privacy law and that the codes do not require government ID or the sharing of a user’s browsing information with government. Those protections are important, but the public needs more than assurances.

Approved age-verification providers should be independently accredited. They should be prohibited from recording which adult services a person accesses. They should collect the minimum information required, secure it properly and delete it when it is no longer necessary. There must be substantial consequences for misuse or careless storage.

The safest design separates identity from browsing. One trusted service verifies that an adult is over 18 and issues a limited credential. The website checks the credential but does not receive the underlying identity document. The verification provider confirms age but does not learn which lawful material the adult views.

That is how we protect children without constructing a surveillance system for adults.

Parents cannot be replaced by legislation

No government department, regulator or technology company can replace an involved parent or trusted adult.

Parents need to understand the services their children use—not every technical detail, but enough to recognise risks involving location sharing, disappearing messages, livestreaming, private groups and contact from strangers.

We also need honest, age-appropriate conversations with children about pornography, scams, manipulation, grooming and intimate images. Silence does not protect them. It allows strangers and algorithms to become their teachers.

A child must know that they can report an uncomfortable experience without automatically being blamed or losing every device. Predators often rely on shame. They persuade a child that they will be punished if an adult discovers what has happened. A calm and supportive response from a parent can break that control.

Schools have a role as well. General warnings to “stay safe online” are no longer adequate. Students should learn how algorithms influence their feeds, how fake images are created, why a private picture may not remain private, how sextortion operates and how to preserve evidence when someone threatens them.

Education must be matched by services capable of responding. Police, counsellors, child-protection specialists, schools and regulators need clear referral pathways. It is unfair to tell children to report abuse if the system then leaves them waiting or sends their family from one agency to another.

Why political accountability matters

The government is asking Australians to trust it with increasingly powerful rules affecting communication, identity and access to lawful content. That trust must be earned.

The official Code of Conduct for Ministers says public office is a public trust. Ministers must act with integrity, fairness and accountability, manage actual and perceived conflicts of interest, and exercise their powers without being influenced by personal advantage.

That standard matters beyond online safety.

The recent controversy involving Transport Minister Catherine King and Qantas illustrates why Australians are sceptical. King’s official parliamentary register records Qantas Lifetime Platinum Status as a gift, along with other airline lounge memberships. Qantas states that Lifetime Platinum normally follows the accumulation of 75,000 eligible status credits and provides valuable privileges for life.

King says the status resulted from 25 years of travel as a parliamentarian. That may explain how it arose, and declaring it is better than concealing it. But disclosure is not the same as resolving a perceived conflict. A minister responsible for aviation should be able to explain why retaining a lifelong private benefit associated with a regulated airline is compatible with the public interest.

There is no evidence presented here that the benefit caused any particular ministerial decision or constituted corruption. The point is broader: Australians expect officials to avoid situations that reasonably appear compromised, not merely record those situations on a register.

The same principle applies to the Communications Minister and online-safety regulators. They should publish the evidence supporting major decisions, disclose relevant industry engagement, explain the error rates of approved technologies and state what will happen if the policy fails.

When broad ministerial powers are proposed, Parliament must retain proper oversight. Protecting children should never become a slogan used to avoid questions about privacy, censorship, effectiveness or political accountability.

A practical Australian standard

I believe Australia needs a national framework built around ten straightforward commitments.

1. Keep children connected. A minor should be able to call family, reach emergency services, use maps, complete schoolwork and access appropriate communication.

2. Separate phone ownership from adult access. Having a device or telephone number must not automatically grant entry to adult services.

3. Require verified adulthood for restricted material. A self-declared date of birth or an “I am 18” button is not a genuine barrier.

4. Protect identity. Adult services should usually receive only confirmation that the user is over 18—not their name, address, full birth date or identification number.

5. Provide several verification options. Australians without a driver licence or personal mobile service must have secure alternatives.

6. Accredit and audit verification providers. Error rates, security controls and data-retention practices should be independently assessed.

7. Make platforms responsible for product design. Protective defaults, limitations on adult contact and safer recommendation systems should be mandatory for child users.

8. Create quick appeal and reporting systems. Adults wrongly blocked need a remedy, while children reporting danger need a rapid human response.

9. Measure actual harm. Government must report whether grooming, sextortion, accidental pornography exposure and harmful recommendations are declining.

10. Hold decision-makers accountable. Ministers, regulators and corporate executives should explain failures and correct them openly.

This is not a choice between safety and freedom

Some advocates talk as if privacy concerns are an excuse for allowing children to access pornography. Others describe any meaningful age check as censorship.

That is a false choice.

Children have a right to protection. Adults have a right to access lawful material. Everyone has a right to reasonable privacy. A properly designed system can respect all three.

An adult website does not need my residential address or a copy of my driver licence. The government does not need a list of lawful websites I visit. But a business profiting from age-restricted material should be required to establish that its customer is an adult.

We already accept this principle offline. The challenge is to reproduce it online without handing sensitive information to every business asking for it.

Technology companies possess extraordinary technical ability when commercial opportunity is involved. They can identify our interests, predict what will hold our attention and place precisely targeted advertisements in front of us. It is difficult to accept that reliable, privacy-preserving age controls are beyond their ability when the safety of children is involved.

Our children need results, not another announcement

As an Australian, I do not want children excluded from technology. I want them to benefit from it without being treated as products, targets or sources of data.

I also do not want a system that forces every Australian adult to distribute identity documents across the internet. We should be capable of building something safer and more intelligent.

The rule should be clear: no verified adulthood, no access to adult content. The implementation should preserve ordinary communications, minimise identity collection, offer several ways to prove age and hold providers accountable when protections fail.

Government must then demonstrate that the system is reducing harm. Not how many press conferences were held. Not how many pages of regulation were written. Not how many accounts were blocked. The measure is whether fewer Australian children are being exposed, manipulated, groomed, threatened and exploited.

That is the result parents deserve, taxpayers should demand and ministers should be required to deliver.

Our children do not need another political promise. They need a system that works.