On Tuesday, Australia threatened to sue social media giants for allegedly flouting a ban on under-16s, as its internet regulator disclosed that it is investigating some of the biggest platforms for suspected non-compliance with the world-first measure.
Three months after the ban came into effect, the eSafety Commissioner said that it was probing Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, Google’s YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok for possible breaches of the law.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government was gathering evidence “so that the eSafety Commissioner can go to the Federal Court and win.”
Tech Giants Claim “Natural Error Margins”
The threat of legal action has been a striking change in the government’s stance, which initially hailed the tech giants’ show of cooperation when the ban was enforced in December.
After an early claim that the companies had deactivated 4.7 million suspected underage accounts, the government has faced daily headlines of teenagers evading restrictions or simply keeping their accounts without going through age verification.
Nearly one-third of parents reported that their under-16 child has at least one social media account after the ban took effect, of which two-thirds said the platform had not asked for the child’s age, according to eSafety.
Meta and Snap stated that they were committed to complying with the ban, and a Meta spokesperson added that the government’s own trial of age-assurance technology found “natural error margins” around the age 16 cutoff.
Under the Australian law, platforms must show that they are taking reasonable steps to restrict underage users or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34 million) per breach, something that eSafety would have to pursue in a civil court.
Age-Verification Loopholes
The regulator initially said it would only take enforcement action in cases of systemic noncompliance. However, in its first comprehensive compliance report since the ban took effect, eSafety stated that measures taken by the platforms have not been up to standard and that it will make a decision about next steps by mid-year.
The regulator has reported major compliance gaps, which include platforms prompting children who had previously declared ages under 16 to do fresh age checks, which allowed children to verify their ages repeatedly until they get a result over 16, and providing poor pathways for people to report underage accounts.
Some platforms did not use age-inference, which estimates age based on someone’s online activity, and some only used age-assurance measures like photo-based checks after a user tried to change their age, rather than at sign-up.
That made it “likely many Australian children aged under 16 have been able to create accounts on age‑restricted social media platforms by simply declaring they are 16 or older”, the regulator said.
(with inputs from Reuters)
