Australia doubles fines for social media companies not following age check law

Privacy-preserving biometric age assurance technologies work; what doesn’t is insignificant consequences for massive, multibillion dollar companies. Australia is taking this lesson to heart. With evidence building that most social media sites simply aren’t bothering with real efforts to comply, the government is “doubling down on platforms that are not doing enough to keep under 16s off social media,” according to a media release from the office of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“The Government will strengthen the eSafety Commissioner’s information-gathering powers with new legislation and will double the maximum penalty for breaches of the social media minimum age law to $99 million.”

That said, in U.S. dollars that’s still only about $68.25 million – not a very potent threat to a company like Meta, which posted $200 billion in revenue in 2025.

New enforcement powers for eSafety could end up being the bigger headache. Incoming laws will allow the eSafety Commissioner to “compel social media companies to provide evidence of what they have done to stop under 16s from getting an account.” Demands for information and documents must be met – and they can be requested from third parties, “such as age assurance or app-store providers, which may assist in validating or testing claims made by platforms.”

In other words, self declaration will no longer fly as a measure of compliance. Penalties for failing to comply with the information-gathering notices will also be doubled.

There is significance in the prime minister’s statement that upping the penalty for systematic breaches from $49.5 million to $99 million “brings it in line with penalties available under competition and consumer law.” In the U.S., a recent ruling on Texas’ app store law framed the legislation in the context of consumer protection law and commercial transactions involving minors, suggesting that lawmakers worldwide may have found a new angle from which to pursue regulations.

Albanese says he is heartened by the “shift in conversation and the global momentum” built from Australia’s precedent-setting Social Media Minimum Age requirement. “But it’s clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law – there are still too many children on social media.”

Minister for Communications Anika Wells says that, “based on the regular updates I receive from the eSafety Commissioner, it is clear to me that social media platforms are adopting tricks straight out of the big tech playbook and doing the bare minimum to get by.”

Poor press for age checks works to Meta’s advantage

The noncompliance by Big Social is as much a strategic move as it is an operational one. It is convenient for Meta and its peers to cultivate the idea that age assurance technology is ineffective – Exhibit A that it should not be legally mandated.

The Age Verification Providers’ Association has frequently noted the redundancy of questions around whether existing age assurance tools are effective. Executive Director Iain Corby says the debate has moved beyond whether online age assurance works. “The technology already exists and is being used successfully every day at enormous scale,” he writes in a recent post.

“The real question is whether platforms are prepared to deploy it consistently and effectively.”

The answer is no. New findings from an observational study conducted by the BMJ show that, three months after the law came into effect, 85 percent of the under-16 kids they surveyed were still using social media platforms, “predominately via use of their own accounts.” Of those, 66 percent reported “exposure to platform age verification, most commonly self-declared age (24-39 percent) or uploading of a picture (13-27 percent).”

“Between baseline and follow-up, daily social media use was stable among 12-13 year olds; reduced somewhat among those aged 14-15 years (from 78 percent to 69 percent), and increased for those aged >16 years (from 80 percent to 89 percent).

The researchers conclude that, “despite the intent of the Social Media Minimum Age Act 2024 to delay access to social media platforms and reduce the potential for online harms, little evidence was found of immediate substantive reductions in reported social media use by adolescents under 16 years.”

Kids are circumventing age checks because the platforms have made it easy. This is a choice: whether it is a matter of ignoring the law entirely by offering self-declaration as an option, or compromising tools via configuration, social media companies are behaving exactly like companies that have, whenever possible, adopted a posture of extreme opposition to age checks, and feel empowered to operate with impunity because of their scale and wealth.

Definitions matter for reported data

Again, the headlines serve social media companies interests: Forbes goes with “Australian ‘Lab’ Reveals the Folly of App Store Age Verification.”

“Australia exists as a highly cautionary tale about efforts to replace parenting with legislation,” says writer John Tamny, who is also president of the Parkview Institute. “It just won’t work. If anything, it will render kids worse off.”

Indeed, in replying to the article on LinkedIn, Robin Tombs, CEO of age verification and age estimation provider Yoti, notes that “UK parents, of whom some 90 percent support an under 16 social media ban, reading this Forbes article are likely to be very dispirited.”

The quest continues to communicate the message that, “with smart regulation, use of effective age checks only and effective enforcement, it is relatively easy to prevent 90 percent of 11-15 year olds from accessing 16+ content.”

In its response to the BMJ findings, AVPA notes that “the most common ‘age verification’ methods reported by teenagers were a self-declared age – explicitly not sufficient under the guidance – and uploading a selfie. Stronger methods such as ID documents, ID numbers, bank card checks or third party verification apps were used far less often.”

“This matters because not all of these methods are age assurance technology in any meaningful sense. A checkbox asking ‘how old are you’ involves no technology and no independent confirmation at all.”

Time will tell how whether laws work as intended

Social media companies know they have a window in which to advertise the purported uselessness of online age checks. Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has emphasized that the law is part of a larger shift in how society views social media; massive social change takes time. Three months in, says AVPA, eSafety had barely started to actively enforce the law.

Tombs makes a similar observation with regard to Forbes. “For another couple of years, Forbes will be able to pick example countries/sectors using less smart regulation and allowing ineffective age checks with weak enforcement, to show some under 16s can still access 16+ content or some children access 18+ content.”

“But it’s also highly likely in the next 12-18 months one or two countries will use smart regs, effective age checks only and effective enforcement to show laws requiring age checks can be made to work.”

The next big test will be France, where regulations limiting large social platforms to kids 16 and over come into effect in September 2026. The UK will follow in spring 2027.

By then, the situation in Australia may look very different.

Big Social knows this. An article in the Guardian reports that “in the European Union, big tech companies spent approximately €150m (£130m) on lobbying last year, an increase of a third in just two years, with social media high on the agenda.”

“One EU lawmaker said tech companies were ‘bombarding’ Brussels with messages challenging social media age bans.”

The piece quotes Theo Bertram, the director of the Social Market Foundation thinktank and a former executive at TikTok, who sums up the larger problem for Silicon Valley: “tech companies are losing public opinion.” Even in Australia, in spite of the bad press, there is growing public support for regulating social platforms.

Many parents will know the feeling of anger one gets when their child is intentionally put in harm’s way. And as age assurance providers battle to get their message across, social media companies will be investing everything they can to stamp out the idea that they are as bad for kids as smoking, alcohol or lead.

Article Topics

age verification  |  Australia age verification  |  AVPA  |  legislation  |  regulation  |  social media