International Justice Mission (IJM) Australia welcomes the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland’s announcement overnight that the Australian Government will develop and legislate a digital duty of care in its response to a key recommendation in the Online Safety Act review.
IJM Australia CEO, David Braga, said, “Together with survivors of online sexual exploitation of children and child protection advocates right around Australia, International Justice Mission has called for a legal duty of care to be imposed on tech companies in our country as part of the Albanese Government’s response to the Online Safety Act review, and we warmly welcome this important announcement from Minister Rowland.”
“A digital duty of care will place the onus on digital platforms to better prevent online harms, including the online sexual exploitation of children, on Australian screens. This is a necessary step to protecting Australian children from online sexual abuse, and children around the world from exploitation by Australian offenders,” Mr Braga said.
Consistent with models in the UK and EU, a legislated duty of care will ensure that Australia’s Online Safety Act requires tech companies operating in Australia to provide comprehensive protections against online harms as they continue to innovate new products and services.
“As recommended by IJM, a digital duty of care will require digital platforms to consistently take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harms, including risks to children who are exposed to their products, by way of ongoing risk assessment and mitigation measures, informed by safety-by-design principles, such as child sexual abuse material classifiers and disrupters,” Mr Braga said.
In the words of Joy*, who was a victim of live streamed child sexual abuse for five years, “If when I was a victim, tech companies used detection tools, I would not have suffered for so many years and there wouldn’t be other victims of my perpetrator.”
“IJM welcomes this shift from a reliance on the eSafety Commissioner issuing takedown notices to tech platforms, as is provided for in the current legislation, to stronger measures to prevent the initial creation and ongoing distribution of illegal content, including child sexual abuse material,” Mr Braga added.
“Consistent with IJM’s recommendations for an enforceable duty of care model, we welcome Minister Rowland’s assertion that where platforms seriously and systemically breach their duty of care, the eSafety Commissioner will be able to draw on strong penalty arrangements, and we re-assert our recommendation of increasing the penalty units up to 10% of global turnover, consistent with the UK model.”
As the Federal Government continues to consider its response to the suite of recommendations made in the Rickard Review, IJM urges further action to protect children from live streamed child sexual abuse on Australian screens.
“The Albanese Government should ensure the digital duty of care includes camera-enabled device manufacturers and operating system providers, which would require them to develop devices for the Australian market that are incompatible with child sexual abuse material,” Mr Braga said.
"In recent months, IJM advocates around Australia have asked their federal MPs to get tough on tech to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse. IJM again calls on all Australian parliamentarians to recognise their demands and pass this important measure as part of their response to the Online Safety Act review when legislation is introduced.”
*A pseudonym has been used for the protection of this survivor.
Contact details:
Media: Briony Camp bcamp@ijm.org.au 0468 308 696