Experts call on the government to protect children from harmful marketing

Children as young as eight are being targeted by gambling, alcohol and unhealthy food advertisements, with one teenage reportedly coming across 14 alcohol ads in two hours, a new report finds.

‘Prioritise our children’s health over corporate profits’: experts call for the government to do more to protect children from harmful marketing. Picture: iStock

Children as young as eight are being targeted by gambling, ­alcohol and junk food advertisements, with experts calling on the government to step in.

Teenagers aged between 14 and 17 are exposed to an average of six alcohol ads a day, a pilot study from Deakin University has found, with one teenager reportedly seeing two gambling, 14 ­alcohol and 70 food online ads in two hours.

It comes as experts gather at Parliament House on Tuesday to discuss the impacts of marketing on young people.

The study also found many of the ads aimed at children and young people encouraged them to “learn more” about alcoholic drinks or prompted them to ­install gambling programs.

Foundation for Alcohol ­Research & Education CEO Caterina Giorgi said the results were particularly concerning given ­research suggested the younger children were exposed to alcohol, the more likely they were to drink later in life.

“Protecting kids from seeing these ads early on is really important to safeguarding them throughout their lives,” she said.

“Social media platforms and alcohol companies will swear that kids aren’t being targeted with these ads, but this isn’t the first study and it won’t be the last to show that kids are seeing these ads,” she said.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said new legislation will be introduced in August to overhaul the Privacy Act. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The report also found children as young as eight were exposed to unhealthy food ads while searching for scooter tricks and playing online games, with children aged between eight and 13 being targeted with about 13 junk food ads a day.

Food for Health Alliance executive manager Jane Martin said the targeted ads were more powerful than those on TV, and normalised the unhealthy foods.

“It’s really worrying when poor diets and unhealthy weight are such a problem in our society, and particularly for young people, because that’s where their habits are being set.” The problem is bigger than simply putting age restrictions on social media, Ms Martin said, urging the government to protect children’s information in thePrivacy Act, as well as ensure the Online Safety Act is extended to include marketing.

“There are discussions now about putting the (social media usage) age at 16, but that’s not going to be enough to protect children,” she said.

Ensuring children’s personal information cannot be collected and used for commercial marketing is crucial, Ms Martin said.

“That would be a really important thing to protect children’s privacy online, particularly when you’re seeing such aggressive and predatory marketing,” she said.

“We really should be prioritising our children’s health over corporate profits, because that’s what this advertising is for – to sell more, to make profits for these corporations.”

The government agreed last year that a children’s online privacy code should be developed in their response to the Privacy Act Review Report.

The response also stated the government agreed in-principle to proposed additional privacy protections for children, including that targeting children should be prohibited unless it’s in the best interest of the child.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said legislation would be introduced in August to overhaul the Privacy Act. “This legislation will include a children’s online privacy code to protect the privacy of children and better regulate the use of their personal information,” the spokesman said.