I wrote a draft letter providing my objections against the recent age verification law. Just wanted to share it so you can use it to contact your representatives.
You can find your local representatives here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/
If you don't know what your electorate is, see here: https://electorate.aec.gov.au/
Feel free to edit it however you like before sending it to your representative. It's a bit long I admit, but this is a serious matter and I've done a lot of research into this. Feel free to summarise this however you like.
Dear: Mr/ Mrs/Ms/Dr First Name Last Name MP OR Senator First Name Last Name OR Politicians who have been or are government ministers will have the title “The Honourable” prefixing their name.
My name is ___ and I am a constituent of ___ electorate. I am contacting you regarding the Online Safety Amendment that is going to be introduced by the end of this year. I am seriously concerned that the privacy risks associated with the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, and am concerned that the measures currently outlined fail to appropriately mitigate these risks. I would be happy to discuss this further, or send more information if the MP is available or would like some more information.
My concerns with the Bill
This Bill was introduced on 21 November 2024 into the federal parliament, and passed on 27 November 2024. There was only a 24 hour period where submissions could be made. By allowing just 24 hours for public submissions to this inquiry, the inquiry process fails to meet basic standards of public consultation and transparency. The fact that it was rushed so quickly, without due public consultation, undermines public confidence in the Bill and raises serious questions about its merits and the true intent behind its push.
The Bill mandates age verification measures that pose significant risks to privacy. I note that while it has been stated there would be no need to provide government issued IDs, it is a fact that identifying the age of an individual is inherently identifying a person, regardless of the type of verification involved.
From January 2025 to July 2025 alone, there have been over 50 breaches. According to OAIC, in 2024 Australia experienced the highest number of data breaches in 3.5 years. Each major data breach affects millions of Australians - such as Qantas, Medibank, Optus, Ticketek and even myGov. And yet, nobody is ever held accountable. No impactful penalties are ever imposed, and these organisations continue business as usual.
The government has stated that it would be up to the various online platforms to come up with a reliable and secure way of verifying identities. It was reported in June this year that 16 Billion Apple, Facebook, Google and other login credentials, including passwords, were leaked.
Can the Australian government ensure with 100% certainty that our information would remain safe and secure? Do we even know where exactly our identification data would be kept? If it would be sold to other companies like Palantir? Would the government take responsibility when another breach inevitably occurs?
The Bill contains several weaknesses
Collecting biomarkers, analysing digital activities to infer age constitutes a significant breach of privacy. The Bill does nothing to promote parental controls on multiple devices, panoptic parenting or push for improved content moderation on online platforms.
Facebook has planned to inject millions of AI chatbots to pose as actual users. Crypto bots on YouTube are being used to scam the users online. The Bill does not take these issues into account.
The Bill also does not require social media companies to actually improve moderation on their websites. Facebook, for example, is actually reducing its content moderation and fact checking.
The Bill does nothing to target online gaming where micro-transactions are becoming increasingly aggressive, causing young people to spend more and more money to play games. The Bill does nothing to target the dopamine addiction caused by creation tools such as YouTube Shorts. More importantly, the Bill does absolutely nothing to eliminate gambling ads that are increasingly being targeted towards young people. If anything, the government has shied away from confronting the gambling industry.
The Bill also does not take into account instances where the parents could just log into online platforms themselves, and hand over their devices to their children to avoid any hassles.
The Bill could have overarching consequences
Let's take UK's online Safety Act as an example. To be straightforward, much like the Australian version, it is so poorly designed and implemented, with vague guidelines and obscenely high fines, that websites are either opting to geo-block the UK, or implement age verifications on their platforms where none are actually required (to save themselves any issues going forward).
For example, Spotify is demanding users to provide their IDs for age verification. Spotify, is a non gaming, non adult content, music playing website. Parliamentary debates are also being blocked in the UK. Wikipedia is also being targeted.
There are issues that continue to affect young people already
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there are horrifyingly high levels of abuse that children have faced in foster care. Not only is this underreported in the media, I barely hear any representative mention this issue and do something about it.
Increasing levels of homelessness, the rising cost of living, the blatant price gouging by monopolies, the underfunding of our public schools and mental health services (amongst other issues) severely negatively impact young people. These issues stifle their growth, make them less and less optimistic about their own future and leave them vulnerable. All of these issues have a much larger harmful impact on the youth, especially as they witness their families struggle daily.
With diminishing third spaces, dwindling resources in schools and very few avenues to reach out to for help, what future do our youths have?
Young people who have experienced assault (sexual and or mental) would need to submit their IDs or verify themselves online in order to seek help. People struggling with addiction would need to go through the same process - including facial verification - to seek resources online for their recovery. This Bill poses threat to minors and vulnerable young people who would need to access basic health information, but would be blocked from accessing it simply because of the age restriction.
Simply put: young people who have been abused would be unable to seek for resources and peer networks because of this Bill.
Has the government tackled any of these issues with such swiftness and ferocity as they have with implementing this Bill?
What the government can actually do to protect young people
Improve the foster care system to detect early signs of abuse and guarantee the safety and wellbeing of children.
Improve funding for public schools, including better pay and working conditions for educators - increasing number of educators are quitting this professions which further jeopardises the wellbeing of children.
Increase the number of third spaces, so young people can have places to connect with peers rather than spending time online.
Force social media platforms to tackle their bot problems by removing AI slop, removing bots, curbing misinformation, improving content moderation, removing YouTube shorts.
Remove gambling ads targeted at young people.
Force social media to increase its fact checking.
Force social media companies to remove content that promotes racism, sexism and anti-intellectualism.
I understand that these suggestions are quite expensive. However, the safety of our digital data and our identifications are much more valuable. Each time there is a data breach, the impact on the affected citizens' lives is immense. A breach of this magnitude would be far more devastating and expensive to rectify.
The way this Bill is designed and pushed trough has had many people very concerned. I urge you to reevaluate this Bill and the way it is lacking any actual, meaningful safeguards. Please ensure full disclosure of the methods or consider removing this Bill, and involve proper public consultation first. Australia's future hinges on partnering with groups that genuinely promote openness and respect, not censorship disguised as protection.
Thank you for considering this issue. I’d appreciate your response and any steps you might take to address it. If these issues are not addressed then I would be forced to reconsider my vote next time, and opt towards the independent or Greens, who have voiced their objections to this Bill.
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