Overview
- Under the new law, platforms must take reasonable steps to detect and remove under‑16 users or face fines up to A$49.5 million.
- Companies outlined account handling plans that include deactivation, temporary freezes or suspensions, deletion options, and tools to archive or download data.
- Age assurance will rely on tools such as Yoti for video selfies, age estimation and ID checks, plus behavioural signals to flag users misstating their age.
- Roughly 1.5 million accounts are expected to be affected, with company estimates including about 450,000 on Meta services, 440,000 on Snapchat and 200,000 on TikTok.
- Executives flagged privacy and safety risks and disputed the scope of exemptions, as senators probed a separate allegation that a TikTok staffer tried to intimidate a lawmaker’s office, which TikTok denied.