New search engine rules aimed at protecting under-18s from harmful content online will not cover sex education content.
The Digital Industry Group Inc (DIGI), a peak industry body for tech giants, told a parliamentary inquiry that the impending online code would not capture information deemed useful or educational.
“We’ve actually had discussions with a number of stakeholders directly who have raised these concerns with us, including sex educators and people who work in health services,” Jennifer Duxbury, a policy director at DIGI, told the Environment and Communications References Committee.
“That kind of content is not captured by these codes. It’s very clearly not ‘class two’ material within the definition of the Online Safety Act.”
Under Australia’s Online Safety Act 2021, the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant was granted power to approve restrictions on the type of content young Australians can access—complementary to the impending under-16 social media ban.
The codes themselves are developed and proposed by the tech giants, before being approved by Inman Grant.
Search Engines, Internet Providers to Rollout Age Verification Checks
Duxbury said the code requires companies to implement age assurance technology for users to verify their age.“Pornography and extremely violent videos and images must be filtered from their search results for users who are not logged in and not age-assured,” she said.
“This material must be blurred in search results.”
The director noted that this was an important safeguard, as many children were exposed to harmful content unintentionally while using the internet.
At the same time, she assured lawmakers that the code would operate appropriately when finalised, as it is under the oversight of the eSafety sommissioner.
“The commissioner has extensive powers to gather information, including under the basic online safety expectation processes, and those [powers] also cover the expectation on services to take action to protect under-18s from being exposed to this sort of [harmful] material,” Duxbury said.
“In addition, the codes also provide a range of additional transparency measures, so platforms need to report to the commissioner about the measures that they’re implementing.
“They also have to explain whether or why those measures are appropriate in accordance with the terms of the code, and appropriateness in the codes is also judged in relation to a range of human rights.”
Search Engines Have Difficulty Distinguishing Useful Health Information
Duxbury also highlighted technology constraints as a challenge to the code’s development.While Duxbury said search engines were very good at targeting pornography and violent content, she admitted that there were challenges identifying useful information designed to assist those at risk of suicide or with drug addictions.
The director explained that in some overseas trials, search engines inadvertently blocked useful resources.
“So, that’s something that we were thinking about when we were designing this code,” she said.
“We wanted to make sure that we were only going to … accurately filter out of search results and not over capture other categories of material where there’s a risk that … people couldn’t access really important health and support services.”
Duxbury then expressed confidence that search engine providers would, in time, enhance their technology to better protect underage users.
