Key Points
- An expert says a key element of the government’s plans to address domestic violence won’t work.
- The federal government wants to try to limit what children can access online through age verification.
- The prime minister says misogynistic content being promoted on social media is having an impact on young people.
The government has said it would move ahead with an age verification trial online to limit access to graphic material such as pornography to prevent access for minors.
“The small technical detail is, it doesn’t work,” Vanessa Teague said.
The cryptographer from the Australian National University pointed to a court case against social media platform X, where the eSafety Commissioner globally.
X has argued the Australian authority doesn’t have the jurisdiction to enforce what its users in other countries see.
It’s unlikely porn sites would pander to an Australian request to mandate age verification technology, Teague said.
“It’s focused on asking the porn sites all over the world to implement a nice little request from Australian law enforcement.”
“You know, ‘Could you please not let these people see your stuff?'”
Such verification could be easily bypassed with simple software, Teague said.
“All that’s going to happen is more people learn to use a VPN,” she said, referring to virtual private networks that disguise the location or identity of the user.
“Everyone is really upset, everyone is really angry, everyone wants the government to do something.
“And that’s exactly when everyone gets sucked into scams. It sounds nice but it just doesn’t work.”
There were also issues about privacy and data retention, she said, pointing to the potential for massive leaks and hacks.
The online measures were fleeing violence agreed upon by a National Cabinet of federal, state and territorial leaders this week.
The government is focusing on online measures to limit access to violent pornography being accessed by children in a few clicks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Misogynistic content being promoted on social media was also having an effect, he said.
“That has an impact on young minds and shaping what is normal and the tragedy here is that it has a devastating impact on young people,” he told ABC radio.
“It also is denigrating the nature of our relationships.”
The Opposition has been calling for the government to adopt age-verification technology to reduce the harm of graphic content and violence against women.
“Children growing up with access to dangerous, violent online content is a clear contributing factor to normalising violence against women,” Opposition communications spokesperson David Coleman said.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus will host state and territory police ministers in Canberra on Friday to talk about violence prevention efforts.
If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence or sexual assault call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit . In an emergency, call 000.
, operated by No to Violence, can be contacted on 1300 766 491.
Source Agencies
