Australian govt issued notice to tech companies to report on child abuse

Australian govt issued a notice to tech companies including Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft to submit reports on child abuse. These tech giants have received legal notifications from the eSafety Commissioner of Australia, Julie Inman Grant.

eSafety is an independent regulator of Australia for online safety. The eSafety Commissioner Julie asked the companies to provide information in a thorough report. The companies will report about their efforts to prevent child sexual abuse online to the regulator every six months.

eSafety has issued legal notices to tech giants including @Apple, @Google, @Meta and @Microsoft, requiring the companies to report to the regulator every 6 months about measures they have in place to tackle online child sexual abuse: https://t.co/KkEsn3dchu pic.twitter.com/mi34LVCsMt
— eSafety Commissioner (@eSafetyOffice) July 23, 2024

eSafety also warned these companies about heavy fines in case of failure to submit a report. According to eSafety, if those companies fail to submit the required report. It may result in penalties of up to $782,500 per day for non-responding services.

eSafety Commissioner under the Australian govt also issued notice to tech companies like Discord, Snap, Skype, and WhatsApp. It sent notice under Australia’s Online Safety Act.

The notice requires an explanation from all recipient companies regarding their approach to child abuse material, live-streamed abuse, and sexual blackmailing. Moreover, it also asked for a report about the creation of deep fake child abuse material using generative AI.

Issued under Australia's Online Safety Act, notices were also sent to services @Discord, @Snapchat, @Skype and @WhatsApp.
— eSafety Commissioner (@eSafetyOffice) July 23, 2024

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These notices will mandate for the first time that tech companies submit reports to eSafety regularly for the next two years. Following this, eSafety will periodically publish summaries of the reports. It will improve transparency, highlight safety flaws, and encourage improvements to prevent online child abuse.

eSafety Commissioner Julie also stated they chose the above companies based on answers they sent to eSafety in 2022 and 2023. Hence, their responses revealed several safety issues regarding the safety of children from online abuse.

eSafety observed that companies like Apple and Microsoft stated in 2022 that they do not make an effort to actively identify child abuse material stored in their iCloud and OneDrive services. However, it is a fact that these file-storage services serve as a haven for child sexual abuse and pro-terror content.