Annastacia Palaszczuk pushes for national ‘right to erase’ laws

QUEENSLAND Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will push for new national laws to enable victims of cyber-bullying to request that damaging material be stripped from the internet.

QUEENSLAND Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will push for new national laws to enable victims of cyber-bullying to request that damaging material be stripped from the internet, at the next meeting of state and federal leaders.

The Courier Mail understands Ms Palaszczuk will again place the issue of cyber-bullying on the agenda of the final meeting of COAG Ministers for the year, to be held next month in Adelaide.

The Queensland government, which last month accepted all 29 wide-ranging recommendations of the Premier’s Anti-cyber-bullying Taskforce, has been lobbying for a national approach to combat the social scourge since the devastating death of Amy “Dolly” Everett, 14, who attended a Queensland boarding school.

Ms Palaszczuk will urge her state and federal colleagues to introduce a national “right to be forgotten” law, which would make it easier for offensive cyber-bullying material to be removed from the internet.

The Premier’s Taskforce, chaired by author and journalist Madonna King, found cyber-bullying victims, including victims of ‘revenge porn’ style attacks where intimate images are shared without consent, had discovered distressing material posted about them still appeared online in web search results even when that content had been removed from the original website or platform it was posted to.

Other countries have dealt with this by passing similar ‘right to erasure’ laws allowing individuals to request search engines like Google remove links to damaging personal information.

It is also understood the Premier will push for COAG to take a stronger position on raising the default privacy settings for smartphones and social media platforms accessed by children.

The Taskforce raised concerns that many popular platforms accessed by teenagers have low privacy settings by default, giving users little control over who sees the personal material they post.

Ms Palaszczuk said Queenslanders wanted the government to take a strong stance against cyber-bullying.

“When you talk to people about the issues they care about — the ones that really matter — this tops the list,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Queensland has led the way with our cyber-bullying Taskforce but, like domestic violence, we need a national effort to combat it,” she said.

But Ms Palaszczuk said a national approach was necessary to force social media companies to take note of the strong role they needed to play in protecting the children who use their products.

If you are a child and you need support, you can contact Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. Adults can phone Lifeline on 13 11 14.