The eSafety commissioner has issued legal notices to Apple, Meta (previously Facebook, including WhatsApp), Microsoft (including Skype), Snap, and anonymous chatroom company Omegle to provide information on how the companies are managing child sexual exploitation material on the platforms.
The notices have been issued as part of the Basic Online Safety Expectations under the Online Safety Act 2021.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said sexually exploitative material of children is present on mainstream social media platforms, not just in the “hidden corners of the dark web”.
“As more companies move towards encrypted messaging services and deploy features like livestreaming, the fear is that this horrific material will spread unchecked on these platforms,” the eSafety commissioner said.
“Child sexual exploitation material that is reported now is just the tip of the iceberg — online child sexual abuse that isn’t being detected and remediated continues to be a huge concern.”
Penalties for companies that do not respond to the notices within 28 days of issue face up to a $555,000 fine per day.
According to Inman Grant, the majority of the more than 61,000 complaints on illegal and restricted content the commissioner has received involved child sexual exploitation.
Minister for communications Michelle Rowland welcomed the actions of the eSafety commissioner.
“This first set of notices marks a key step in the implementation of the Basic Online Safety Expectations,” the minister said.
“The reporting from industry will help inform future government decisions around what needs to be done to protect Australians online, and improve transparency to the public.”
Rowland added she encouraged the companies named to comply with the legal notice.
The announcement comes after the eSafety commissioner published its 2022-2025 strategy, as previously reported in The Mandarin.
The strategy had named child sexual exploitation as an area of concern for the commissioner.
“More commonly, a range of mainstream platforms and services allows adults and children to co-mingle, without age or identity verification. This enables grooming by sexual predators, sexual extortion and other forms of social engineering used to manipulate children,” the outlook stated.
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