Australia warns social media platforms against age verification for all ahead of ban on children
Melbourne (AP): Australian authorities said Tuesday that social media platforms should not demand age verification for all account holders starting from December, when a ban on children under 16 having accounts goes into effect in the country.
The government released guidelines on how platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram should apply the world's first ban on children using social media from December 10. It says verifying the ages of all account holders would be unreasonable.
“We think it would be unreasonable if platforms reverified everyone's age,” said Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who drafted the guidelines. Her use of the word “reverified" suggested the platforms usually already had sufficient data to verify a user was older than 16.
She said the platforms have “targeting technology” to focus on those under 16.
"They can target us with deadly precision when it comes to advertising. Certainly they can do this around the age of a child,” she added.
Australia's Parliament enacted the ban last year, giving the platforms a year to work out its implementation. The platforms face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (USD33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
Critics of the legislation fear that banning young children from social media will impact the privacy of all users who must establish they are older than 16.
Inman Grant said claims the ban would see every Australian account holder subjected to age verification as a “scare tactic.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government seeks to keep platform users' data as private as possible.
“These social media platforms know an awful lot about us" already, Wells said. "If you have been on, for example, Facebook since 2009, then they know you are over 16. There is no need to verify.”
Wells and Inman Grant will travel to the United States next week to discuss the guidelines with the platforms' owners.
Inman Grant said the platforms would need to demonstrate to her agency that they were taking “reasonable steps” to exclude children younger than 16.
“We don't expect that every under-16 account is magically going to disappear on December 10,” Inman Grant said. "What we will be looking at is systemic failures to apply the technologies, policies and processes.”
Melbourne's RMIT University expert on information sciences Lisa Given told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the government's approach acknowledges that age verification technologies make errors.
“It's going to be up to each of the platforms to determine how they're going to comply and it will be interesting to see if they test the limits of the definition of reasonable steps,'” Given said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
SC stays HC order restraining Tamil Nadu Waqf Board from exercising functions
New Delhi (PTI): The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed a Madras High Court order which restrained the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board from exercising any functions while observing that its constitution was prima facie not in accordance with the provisions of law.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government and others seeking their responses on the petition filed by the waqf board challenging the high court's January 8 order.
The high court had passed the order on a plea which challenged the constitution of the waqf board on the grounds, including that one out of the two persons as mandated in clause (d) of Section 14 of the Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Act, 1995, has not been nominated.
The plea before the high court also claimed non-compliance of the mandate that two of the total members of the Bar appointed under sub-section (1) of Section 14, excluding ex-officio members, shall be non-Muslim.
Section 14 of the Act deals with composition of board.
Before the high court, the counsel appearing for the state contended that constitution of the board is almost complete as majority of members have already been nominated or appointed and as far as other members are concerned, steps are being taken to complete the same.
In its order, the high court noted the mandate of second proviso that two of the total members of the board appointed under sub-section (1), excluding ex-offico member, shall be non-Muslim has also been not fulfilled.
"The constitution of the board as exists today, prima facie is not in accordance with the provisions of law," the high court said.
"In view of the above, the board cannot be allowed to exercise any powers and functions under the act. The board is hereby restrained from exercising any powers and functions," it said.
