Tech companies could use AI to decide whether young people in Australia are old enough to be on social media, Jess Kelly has said.
Yesterday, Australia announced plans to ban under-16s from accessing social media in a bid to prevent children from online "harm".
The country’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was “calling time” on child social media use, noting that Australian families are “worried sick about the safety of our kids” online.
He said new legislation would be introduced later this month and would take effect one year after it is passed.
On Breakfast Business, Newstalk Technology Correspondent Jess Kelly explained how the ban might be enforced.
Jess said the new laws would make social media platforms responsible for enforcing the ban.
"The onus would be on the social platforms to ensure that it is in place and enforced, and not on the young person or parents," she said.
Enforcing the ban
To implement the social media ban,Jess said Australia may look to age verification tools currently used by Meta.
In certain regions, Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, uses technology to give under 16-year-olds teen accounts.
Jess said new teen accounts are set to be introduced in Ireland.
"Anyone who has correctly entered their date of birth, putting them under the age of 16, will be placed into a restrictive account that requires parental permission to make any changes to settings," she said.
Parents will also be able to access their child's direct messages through these restrictive accounts.
Artificial Intelligence
If the technology has doubts about a date of birth, AI will crawl through the platform to determine the user's age.
"AI will find your photographs, find your interactions and make a judgment call," Jess said.
If the AI determines the user is under 16, they will be put on a restrictive account.
Users can dispute this by uploading their ID.
Operating systems
Another way Australia could implement the social media ban is through software settings on smartphones.
"Operating systems that have some parental guidance modes established as well as restrictions in the App Store could prevent the apps from being available on devices owned by teenagers," Jess said.
Opposition to the ban
Jess said not everyone in Australia is in favour of the proposal.
"Some safety outreach, a few other safety charities in Australia have said that it’s too blunt a tool to address the problem," she said.
She said there are also concerns children will "lose out on some of the benefits of social media".
Ireland
While there is no indication that Ireland will introduce a similar ban, Jess said "a lot of work is being done in terms of online safety".
"We have our Online Safety Commissioner, we have Coimisiún na Meán, and obviously we have EU legislation in place to protect people online," she said.
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