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.
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Ex-PM Devegowda warns opposition of electoral losses if they continue to allege 'vote chori'
New Delhi (PTI): Former Prime Minister H D Devegowda on Monday said the Opposition parties would "suffer" if they continue to raise allegations of "vote chori" and create suspicion in the minds of voters by blaming Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government.
Participating in a discussion on election reforms in the Rajya Sabha, he criticised the Opposition for making a mockery about the Prime Minister "in the streets and on the public platform".
"This (India) is a very big country. A large country. Congress may be in three states. Remember my friends please, by using the words 'vote chori' you are going to suffer in the coming days. You are not going to win the battle," Devegowda said, referring to the Opposition members.
He asked what the Opposition is going to earn by "blaming Narendra Modi's leadership and creating a suspicion in the mind of the voters" through the claims of "vote chori".
"What has happened to their minds? Let them rectify," Devegowda said.
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The former prime minister said that during his over seven decades of public life, he has never raised such issues of vote theft despite facing defeat in elections.
He also cited a letter written by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru regarding inclusion of "18,000 votes" (voters) in Kerala.
"Why I am telling this (because) during the Nehru period also, there were certain lapses in the electoral system," said Devegowda, who was the prime minister between June 1, 1996 and April 21, 1997.
He said that the Congress party faced defeat in the recent Bihar elections despite raising the issues of mistakes in the electoral rolls.
"What happened after that even after so much review (of voters list). Think (for) yourself! You got six MLAs," the senior Janata Dal (Secular) leader said.
Devegowda questioned the Opposition as to why they want to make allegations against the prime minister on the issue of the voters list?
"Election Commission is there. Supreme Court is there. The Election Commission has given direction to all the state units to rectify all these things," he said.
Devegowda said people of the country have full confidence in Narendra Modi's government and it will come back to power after the next Lok Sabha elections as well.
K R Suresh Reddy, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) party's Rajya Sabha member from Telangana, said that electoral reforms are the backbone for a healthy democracy.
He said a large and diverse nation like Indi needs clean electoral rolls.
Asserting that strict re-verification should not become a mechanism for exclusion, Reddy said no eligible voter should lose their right to vote simply because accessing paperwork is difficult.
He said while the concern definitely is on the voters' exclusion, "we should also be equally concerned about the percentage of voting."
"What is happening in voting today? Once the election ends, the drama begins. The biggest challenge that the Indian democracy has been facing in spite of two major Constitutional amendments has been the anti-defection. Anti-defection is the name of the game today, especially in smaller states, especially where the legislatures are small in number," Reddy said.
The senior BRS leader suggested creation of a parliamentary committee "which would constantly look into the defection" and "ways and means to cutting that".
AIADMK's M Thambidurai raised the issues related to election campaigning.
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"Election campaigns are one of the important election processes. In that, political parties must be given the proper chance to campaign," he said and cited problems faced by his party in Tamil Nadu in this regard.
Thambidurai said political parties were facing hardships in Tamil Nadu to conduct public meetings and to express their views to the public.
YSRCP's Yerram Venkata Subba Reddy stressed on bringing electoral reforms at both the state and national levels.
He also suggested replacing Electronic Voting Machines with paper ballots in all future elections.
"EVM may be efficient but can't be trusted. Paper ballot may not be efficient but can be trusted. You need trust in democracy," Reddy added.
