Social media ban ‘dangerous’ and ‘clumsy’ tech experts warn

Meta says every social media app will have to start collecting Australian children’s biometric and personal identification data to comply with new laws that experts warn risk dooming the country to digital illiteracy.

Facebook owner Meta says every social media app will have to start collecting Australian children’s personal identification or biometric data to comply with the new laws or face fines of up to $50m.

Australia will impose the strictest laws in the world for social media, banning children under the age of 16 from using popular platforms including Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat. But how the sweeping changes will work have been branded a “mystery” and “dangerous” among tech experts.

Social media titans that fail to comply with the new rules – which the Senate passed after a three-hour debate on Thursday night – will face fines of up to $50m when they are enforced by the end of next year. Facebook owner Meta says this means every social media provider will have to start collecting Australian children’s personal identification or biometric data.

While one of the nation’s top entrepreneurship and innovation programs warn it risks “dooming Australia’s children to digital illiteracy”.

The US and France have moved to limit children’s social media use but the Australian ban is a world first. The new laws sparked headlines across the globe from New York and Washington to London, Zurich and Moscow.

“The Land of Kangaroos has just accepted a bill to fine social networks that tolerate accounts opened by children to the tune of millions,” Zurich-based newspaper Blick wrote.

Russian state media highlighted that it had already banned two big platforms, Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, saying they were “recognised as extremist”.

Australia’s laws have prompted support from Denmark and Norway, while the UK’s has flagged it could follow suit, with technology secretary Peter Kyle ordering new research into the impacts of social media and smartphone use on British children from communications regulator Ofcom, which will report back within six months.

Australia has become the first country into the world to ban children using social media.

Melbourne father Rob Evans, whose daughter Liv took her life when she was 15 stemming from issues social media exacerbated, said the new laws were: “absolutely the right thing to do to protect our kids”.

“I’m so proud to see Australia leading the way with this world-first legislation to raise the minimum social media age from 13 to 16,” Mr Evans said.

“Special thanks also to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton for their bipartisan support – proof that when it comes to our kids’ safety, politics can take a back seat. This is a big win for Australian families and a legacy we can all be proud of.“

But a spokeswoman for Snap, which owns Snapchat, said the company had “serious concerns about the legislation” and there were “many unanswered questions about how this law will be implemented in practice”.

In a submission to the government, Snap said the ban could the opposite effect of keeping children safe and healthy.

“Many experts have highlighted the significant unintended consequences of this legislation, notably that it could deny young people access to valuable mental health and wellbeing resources, while potentially driving them toward less regulated and more dangerous online spaces than the mainstream, highly regulated platforms covered by the bill,” Snap wrote.

The Australian Human Rights Commission also criticised the ban, saying it had been “rushed”.

“While the safeguarding of children is needed and welcomed, the Federal Government’s current rushed plan to ban children under 16 from social media oversimplifies a complex issue and carries the risk of unintended harms,” Australian Human Rights Commissioner Lorraine Finlay and National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollands wrote in a joint statement.

Lisa Given, professor of information sciences at RMIT University, says how the laws will work “remain a mystery”, saying it was not clear which platforms will be covered and how age verification will work.

“As well as having to verify the age of people wanting to create an account, tech companies will also need to verify the age of existing account holders – regardless of their age. This will be a significant logistical challenge,” Professor Given wrote in The Conversation.

“An even bigger concern is how tech companies will be able to verify a user’s age. The legislation provides little clarity about this.”

The government aims to keep children safe by enforcing the ban.

Professor Given said there were several options social media platforms could pursue, including using someone’s credit card details liked to an app store account to verify age.

“However, this approach would exclude access for people who meet the age requirement of being over 16, but do not hold credit cards.”

She said facial recognition was another option but such commercially available systems had an error rate of up to 35 per cent for dark-skinned women.

The government has announced an age verification trial to prevent children under the age of 18 accessing online pornography. But the results of that will not be known until mid next year - six months before the new laws are enforced.

A Meta spokeswoman said the company has “already invested significantly in understanding age and ensuring age-appropriate experiences on our apps”.

This includes requiring teenagers since 2022 to prove their age through a video selfie or ID check if they attempt to falsely claim they are aged 18 or over.

“Any new laws aimed at protecting children and teens online should empower parents and be consistently applied across all apps that young people commonly use, including YouTube and online gaming,” the Meta spokeswoman said.

“We are concerned the government is rushing this legislation without adequate consultation or evidence and there are still many unknowns with respect to its implementation. Furthermore, the government’s approach will likely require each app provider to collect personal identification or biometric data from all Australians in order to prevent under 16s from accessing their services, an inefficient and burdensome process for everyone.”

Rachel Lord, public policy senior manager at Google – which owns YouTube – said: “We are disappointed by the Australian Parliament’s hasty passage of this bill”.

“This rushed legislation overlooks the fundamental differences between services and the unique benefits these can deliver to Australian youth,” she said.

“We urge the government to swiftly follow through on their commitment to preserve access to services that “operate[s] with a significant purpose to enable young people to get the education and health support they need” and pass legislative rules that clearly exempt YouTube, thereby providing certainty to Australian families, creators, teachers, and educators.”

David Burt, director of entrepreneurship at UNSW Founder, said the laws risked Australia’s transition to the smart economy, saying the ban was “dangerous, clumsy and risks dooming Australia’s children to digital illiteracy”.

“Some children will have the technological savvy and means to easily evade the ban where others cannot. Some children will play with quantum computers while others will play with sticks and stones. This technology literacy gap could create a permanent underclass of Australian children who lack the digital literacy to participate in the global economy,” Mr Burt said.