In June 2021, the federal government passed the Online Safety Act 2021 (OS Act) which makes online service providers accountable for the safety of people who use their services. In particular, it regulates cyber-bullying material targeted at children, cyber-abuse material targeted at adults, abhorrent violent conduct, non-consensual sharing of intimate images and sets out basic online safety expectations for social media services, relevant electronic services and designated internet services.
The key features of the OS Act are as follows:
A business operating wholly or partly in one of the sectors set out above should be aware of their obligations to comply with the online safety expectations as well as any notices they receive within the short timeframe specified.
The OS Act commenced on 23 January 2022 and separate codes have been developed for different online business sectors (set out below) which outline steps that must be taken to reduce access and exposure to certain types of harmful online material, including child sexual exploitation material and terrorist material.
The different sectors identified by the OS Act are:
The draft industry codes were published on 1 September 2022 and were subject to public and industry consultation until the beginning of October 2022. Following public consultation, the industry associations submitted draft industry codes to eSafety on 18 November 2022. However, on 9 February 2023 the eSafety Commissioner advised that the draft industry codes for class 1 material (material that would be refused classification) did not provide appropriate community safeguards and were unlikely to meet the statutory requirements for registration.
On 31 March 2023, industry associations resubmitted eight industry codes for class 1 material to eSafety for registration. Of these eight, the eSafety Commissioner decided to register five industry codes, which were published on the Register of online industry codes and industry standards page on 16 June 2023:
On 7 September 2023, the eSafety Commissioner added the Internet Search Engine Services Code to this list following resubmissions by the relevant industry associations.
The obligations contained in these codes will come into effect on 16 December 2023.
The second phase of codes development, focusing on ‘class 2’ content (content that might be classified as X18+ or R18+) has not yet commenced and will take place after the first phase is completed.
*Information is accurate up to 27 November 2023