Opposition leader Peter Dutton commits to age verification on social media

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says he has “no faith” social media companies will properly enforce age limits, so he has promised the Coalition will force them to.

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Exclusive: Social media companies will have to verify the age of their users to ensure young teens and children are not illegally accessing platforms under a Coalition election promise to protect Australian kids from online harms.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will on Thursday pledge to introduce a verification system so age limits on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are properly enforced.

The commitment followed Mr Dutton telling Nova’s Michael “Wippa” Wipfli on Wednesday that he endorsed raising the age for kids accessing social media from 13 to 16, which he said the Coalition would do within 100 days of taking office.

The Opposition’s support for raising the age follows News Corp Australia’s Let Them Be Kids campaign, which has highlighted the shocking rates of mental health and physical harms linked to social media by qualified experts and parents.

Mr Wipfli has also co-founded a campaign called 36 Months, aimed at increasing the age of social media access by three years.

The initiative has garnered significant public support in its campaign on Change.org, collecting over 100,000 signatures from Australians in just 30 days.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton says the Coalition will introduce age verification for social media. Picture: Martin Ollman

Mr Dutton told News Corp the time for relying on social media companies to enforce age limits was “over”.

“They don’t do it, they never have, and we have no faith in them to do so in the future,” he said.

“A Coalition government would introduce a system of age verification to make sure social media companies comply with Australian laws on age access.”

Digital experts say a range of technology solutions already exist to do this, including live facial image age estimation, and secure systems where social media companies could conduct “blind checks” of a user’s age without getting access to their private information.

The federal opposition leader argued that if parents wouldn’t allow their 13-year-old to browse a pornographic magazine, they shouldn’t permit unrestricted access to social media either.

“If there was a book with that graphic content and that pornographic content sitting on the coffee table at home you wouldn’t your 13-year-old flick through the pages,” Mr Dutton said on Sunrise on Thursday.

“I think we have to act like a mature society, we have to call out the companies.

“These challenges are mounted by the companies because the companies are only interested in profit and the number of subscribers.”

Children under 16-years-old will not be able to access social media under the Coalition’s pledge. Picture: Getty Images

Dutton said the installation of facial recognition on the sites would not be off the table.

“I think we have a huge capacity here within our system, the technology is much better than it was five years ago,” he said.

“Facial recognition to determine somebody’s age is appropriate.

“I think there are a number of ways in which we can do it.

“We can work through the tax system or whatever is required to budge these companies into an outcome.”

Coalition communication spokesman David Coleman says Labor has been behind on age verification. Picture: Gary Ramage

Asked if he would also support raising the minimum age of social media, Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday the government was focused on delivering a $6.5 million trial of age verification technology to “examine how this can be done effectively”.

“This is something that we need a whole of government response to, but a whole of society response to as well, and that’s what we’re doing,” the Prime Minister said.

But Coalition communication spokesman David Coleman criticised Labor for lagging behind on the issue, with the government last year refusing to support opposition legislation to establish an age verification trial.

“There’s no doubt about it, Australian children are being damaged by social media and the Coalition will take strong action to support Australian families,” Mr Coleman said.

On Wednesday Mr Dutton said he would make raising the minimum age for social media accounts a priority if the Coalition won the next federal election.

“I would put it at the top of my list for the first 100 days in government, so within the first three months we would introduce it,” he told Nova.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable that particularly for young children where you’ve got impressionable minds, and particularly when the evidence is so obvious that the self-harm and the pressure that comes on young people through sharing of images, that’s the reality of their life right now and we should be doing everything we can to support them.”

Mr Dutton said this would give concerned parents more “power in the equation” to enforce measures with their children.

“It’s the case that we need to have just a sensible, moderate approach, nobody’s saying ban the internet or any of that sort of nonsense, it is about allowing parents to have that conversation,” he said.

“It’s tough for parents because every kid in the class has got it so why haven’t I, but if you introduce the law and you normalise that as being the accepted norm.”

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