After social networks, Australia attacks search engines to protect young people. The commissioner of the Esafety digital regulatory authority, Julie Inman Grant, has announced the entry into force of a new regulation that will force them to impose age restrictions on users. This, since the end of 2025, the text left them a period of six months after its entry into force.
To begin with, search engines must in particular “implement appropriate age verification measures for account holders.” In other words, Australians with a Google, Microsoft or another account must demonstrate their age due to lack of which they cannot use a search engine.
Efficiency to demonstrate
The regulations will also force the search engines to “apply tools and/or parameters (…) at the highest level of security by default for an account holder that [leurs] Age verification systems probably indicate a child. “
With these new rules, Australia aims to better protect minors against online hazards such as pornography. The higher security tools and parameters will filter “at least” this adult content, as well as “the content with a strong violent impact detected in the search results” by children. Search engines must also configure parents control to limit children’s access to this content.
It remains to be seen if these new rules will be effective. If several states or countries, such as France, have adopted age verification laws to protect minors, the latter manage to avoid them. This, especially using a VPN. VPN memberships exploded in France after the temporal blockade of the Porthub Content Content Platform pronography, linked to the law that forced him to verify the age of his visitors.
And in Australia, where the law that prohibits access of less than 16 years to social networks will enter into force at the end of the year, minors already easily avoid the age limit of these platforms.
Source: BFM TV
