The Australian government recently finalised its consultation for the upcoming Online Safety Bill to better consume protection online.

The Bill is aimed at widening the powers of the eSafety Commissioner to protect individuals online by implementing safeguards and mechanisms to prevent the proliferation of harmful content

In summary, the draft bill includes:

• “The provisions in the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 that are working well to protect Australians from online harms, such as the image-based abuse scheme;

• A set of core basic online safety expectations for social media services, relevant electronic services, and designated internet services, clearly stating community expectations, with mandatory reporting requirements;

• An enhanced cyberbullying scheme for Australian children to capture a range of online services, not just social media platforms;

• A new cyber abuse scheme for Australian adults, to facilitate the removal of serious online abuse and harassment;

• A modernised online content scheme, to create new classes of harmful online content and reinvigorate out of date industry codes to address such content;

• New abhorrent violent material blocking arrangements that allow the eSafety Commissioner to respond rapidly to an online crisis event, such as the Christchurch terrorist attacks, by requesting internet service providers block access to sites hosting seriously harmful content; and

• Consistent take-down requirements for image-based abuse, cyber abuse, cyberbullying and harmful online content, requiring online service providers to remove such material within 24 hours of receiving a notice from the eSafety Commissioner.”

Additionally, the proposed Bill will carry further implications into online businesses, most notably as to how they manage certain content online. It will be incumbent upon online businesses to take precautionary steps when dealing with online content, understand the upcoming legislative changes, prepare internal policies to manage conflicts, and update any areas of doubt. This reform is a welcome change and one that is necessary as younger generations become more active online.