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Speaker 1: Social media age limits won't keep children safe online. According

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Speaker 1: to the Alana and Madeline Foundation, they welcome the announcement

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Speaker 1: made by the federal government, which followed the state government

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Speaker 1: here in South Australia talking about age limits for social media,

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Speaker 1: but that alone won't ensure children's online safety, according to

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Speaker 1: the CEO, Sarah Davis of the Alana and Madeline Foundation,

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Speaker 1: Sarah joins me, now, good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: How are you all right? Thank you? What else needs to.

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Speaker 2: Happen here, Well, Matthew, one of the really really important

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Speaker 2: things that needs to happen happened yesterday, so we are

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Speaker 2: pretty excited. The Attorney General presented a bill yesterday to

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Speaker 2: Parliament as part of the sort of foreshadowed privacy reforms,

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Speaker 2: and one of the pieces of legislation in that bill

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Speaker 2: is provisioned for online online Children's Privacy Code, which is

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Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic because that is going to go to the

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Speaker 2: driver of the harms and the risks that our children

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Speaker 2: are experiencing online and that really will make a difference.

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Speaker 2: So we are pretty pumped.

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Speaker 1: All right, very good news. It doesn't let parents of

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Speaker 1: the hook in any way, does it. They've got to

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Speaker 1: put the the guidelines in place at home.

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Speaker 2: Oh completely, So you know there are we all share

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Speaker 2: responsibility for this right. So absolutely it's up to us

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Speaker 2: as parents and schools and teachers and community to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we educate our children and ourselves on how

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Speaker 2: to navigate tech and the online world safely and confidently,

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Speaker 2: and how to participate in that world and create good

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Speaker 2: experiences for us and others. But you know that, as

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Speaker 2: tumes that we're entering into a playing field where there

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Speaker 2: are clear safety by design rules and at the moment

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Speaker 2: that's not the case. So it is government's responsibility to

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Speaker 2: make sure that you're children's digital rights are upheld by

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Speaker 2: setting you know, minimum standards based on community expectations, and

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Speaker 2: then to hold tech companies to account to deliver on that.

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Speaker 2: And that is what this Online Children's Privacy Code will do.

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Speaker 2: It will set the minimum rules of the game about

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Speaker 2: high default privacy settings, no selling of children's data, so

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Speaker 2: that actually when we go online, we know that those

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Speaker 2: basic core safety standards are in place.

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Speaker 1: Why do tech companies regard children as being of age

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Speaker 1: at thirteen? That's always puzzled me.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think there are a couple of things. The

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Speaker 2: first thing to say is that I think that we've

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Speaker 2: had twenty to thirty years of this tech evolution and

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Speaker 2: it's happened around us, and it's a bit kind of

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Speaker 2: like the boiling frog. We haven't kind of really noticed

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Speaker 2: and we're waking up now and looking at this going,

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Speaker 2: you know, holy shit, some of this is not great.

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Speaker 2: So I think that's the first thing. I don't think

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Speaker 2: that there was some machiavellian design twenty years ago to

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Speaker 2: build something like this. I think there is an element

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Speaker 2: of that evolution. I think the second point is that

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Speaker 2: the classification system that we have in Australia was built

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Speaker 2: for films and music and television. It wasn't built for

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Speaker 2: the Internet, and so we're applying a framework that actually

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Speaker 2: doesn't work for the Internet. So I agree, I think

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Speaker 2: thirteen is a peculiarly arbitrary age. Right. If you talk

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Speaker 2: to child development experts, they will tell you what the

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Speaker 2: core generic child development processes and age stages are. So

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Speaker 2: I think that's the other thing, is we've tried to

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Speaker 2: forcefit a framework that doesn't work. The third comment, and

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Speaker 2: this is where I'm liable to get into trouble a bit,

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Speaker 2: is that a lot of the tech companies. Actually, and

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Speaker 2: I'm not talking just social media here, I'm talking all techs.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that they could give a rap about

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Speaker 2: what age children are or aren't because their core for

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Speaker 2: many of them, their core business model is a user

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Speaker 2: is the dollar. So we are their currency. It's our

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Speaker 2: data that they make their money from. They trade it,

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Speaker 2: they sell it, they identify it, they profile it. So

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Speaker 2: it's the more data they have, the more users they have,

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Speaker 2: the more money they make. So I think if you

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Speaker 2: put those three kind of bits together, that's kind of

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Speaker 2: why I reckon we've ended up where we are.

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Speaker 1: Okay, they've been off the hook too, I know and

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Speaker 1: totally accept. Actually, I think you make a good point

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Speaker 1: with the boiling frog argument that this has happened around us,

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Speaker 1: but there's been enough said about the dangers of this,

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Speaker 1: and social media companies giants have just looked the other

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Speaker 1: way all the way through, including you know, Elon must

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Speaker 1: taking over from Jeck Dawson before him, and there's been

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Speaker 1: no change in any of.

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Speaker 2: This is belief, It really does.

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Speaker 1: Yah. No.

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Speaker 2: Tech companies have a responsibility to absolutely prevent their services

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Speaker 2: and products being used in ways that violate children's rights

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Speaker 2: and expose them to harm and what is fabulous. I

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Speaker 2: had a look at the bill that was presented yesterday

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Speaker 2: just to quick read last night, and what it says

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Speaker 2: is that the bill will apply to all tech services

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Speaker 2: that are likely to be accessed by children, So not

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Speaker 2: just social media sites targeted at children, but all tech

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Speaker 2: service is likely to be accessed by children, and that

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Speaker 2: the providers have got to think about the nature and

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Speaker 2: content of their service, whether it might have a particular

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Speaker 2: appeal to children, what the current usage behavior is, or

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Speaker 2: usage of similar or existing services, the way the service

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Speaker 2: is accessed, so they've actually got to they've got to

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Speaker 2: assess whether a service is likely to be used by

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Speaker 2: children based on dat all of that information. That is fantastic.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, we have to hold them to account. And sorry, Matthew.

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Speaker 2: The other thing, and I think we may have talked

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Speaker 2: about this before, is it is absolutely time that tech

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Speaker 2: stopped self and co regulating in Australia. We really need

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Speaker 2: to see strong independent regulation. And again this Online Children's

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Speaker 2: Privacy Code will be designed and regulated and enforced by

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Speaker 2: the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. So it just

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Speaker 2: takes tech out of the picture. They can't design their

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Speaker 2: own rules of the game in this space, and we

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Speaker 2: need that across all tech. But this is a massive start.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. The Safety Commissioner's role in this is that

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Speaker 1: the same as the Australian Commissioner you just mentioned that

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Speaker 1: or is that a difference we have.

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Speaker 2: There are three commissioners that kind of all work in

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Speaker 2: this space. We have the Safety Commissioner, who, as you know,

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Speaker 2: I think it is this frick and amazing and she

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Speaker 2: has powers under her Act around the safety. We then

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Speaker 2: have the Australian Information Commissioner that's Elizabeth Todd, and so

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Speaker 2: she's been given carriage or that commission's being given carriage

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Speaker 2: of the Online Children's Privacy Code, and I actually think

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Speaker 2: that's a really smart move because what it's saying is

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Speaker 2: it's saying this is applicable to the whole of children's life.

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Speaker 2: So yes, this is online, but actually it's embedded in

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Speaker 2: a legal sense and therefore in an enforcement in privacy legislation.

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Speaker 2: And then we also have our Privacy Commissioners, So there

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Speaker 2: are three parts of that that need to play together.

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Speaker 1: All right, I have to leave it there, Sarah, thank

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Speaker 1: you for your time this morning.

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Speaker 2: Anytime, and Matthew, I just want to say thank you

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Speaker 2: because you know, these are complicated issues. Simple solutions aren't

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Speaker 2: going to work. And you know often when you talk

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Speaker 2: about data, people roll their eyes and heads for the exit.

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Speaker 2: But the more we understand about the causes and the drivers,

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Speaker 2: the more likely we are to fix it. So just

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Speaker 2: thank you for the opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, probl and you know they are complicated. I

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Speaker 1: was just thinking as you were talking a few minutes ago,

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Speaker 1: when I'd come home from school. I mean, the closest

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Speaker 1: you got to social media and particularly content was whatever

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Speaker 1: was on TV between four and six. It was aimed

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Speaker 1: for kids, you know, Bugs, Bunny and more racier shows

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Speaker 1: like Get Smart or Batman. You know, yeah, that was it.

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Speaker 1: It was kids TV of that that era, and it

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Speaker 1: was black and white on our TV anyway, and we went.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's have a children's yeah for children?

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Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yeah, all right, good Sarah, appreciate the time. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Sarah Davis from the Atlana and Madeline Foundation