Australia Expands Age Verification to Porn and Explicit Video Games
Australia has significantly broadened its digital age verification requirements, extending them from social media platforms to include pornography websites and explicit video games. This new mandate, which came into effect on Monday, represents a major escalation in the country's efforts to shield children from harmful online content.
Comprehensive Online Safety Measures
Under Australia's updated regulations, search engines, social media platforms, app stores, gaming providers, and generative AI systems must now implement "meaningful steps" to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate material. This expansion comes just thirteen weeks after Australia enacted some of the world's most stringent digital restrictions, banning access to major social networks including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X/Twitter for users under sixteen.
The new rules specifically target content containing violence, self-harm material, and dangerous themes such as suicide and disordered eating. App stores must conduct age verification checks before allowing downloads of software labeled 18+, while websites disseminating pornography must verify users are over eighteen, aligning Australia with Britain, France, and numerous US states.
Impact on Gaming and Adult Content
Australia's eSafety Commissioner has clarified that users must complete some form of age assurance to access online games classified R18+ by the Australian Classification Board. This means popular games like Grand Theft Auto V's online mode will likely become inaccessible to children under sixteen. For games not classified as R18+, no age checks are required.
eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant emphasized the rationale behind these measures, stating, "We don't allow children to walk into bars or bottle shops, adult stores or casinos, but when it comes to online spaces where they are spending a lot of their time, there are no such safeguards. That changes for Australian kids with these codes which simply bring those same, common sense protections we all grew up with to the online world of today."
In response to the new regulations, Canada-based Aylo, owner of a large network of pornography websites, has blocked Australians from accessing platforms like RedTube and YouPorn while presenting a version of Pornhub without explicit content. These websites now display banners indicating they are "not currently accepting new account registrations in your region."
Privacy Concerns and Expert Warnings
Experts have raised significant concerns about the privacy implications of this expanded age verification mandate. Joanne Orlando, an associate professor of digital wellbeing at Western Sydney University, warned, "While the government is framing this next wave of verification as a necessary step to protect children, there is an increasingly worrying situation for our privacy and safety more broadly. Mandating government ID or face scans not only on social media platforms, but also now on extreme adult content sites creates a worrying smorgasbord of who has access to our sensitive data."
Mark Johnson, a senior lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, expressed additional concerns about potential unintended consequences. "Young people are always going to find ways around age gating to play games they want to play, and making more adult games seem forbidden is likely to both encourage young people towards them rather than the opposite, and make it harder to talk to parents or carers about their gaming," he explained. "Any age verification of this sort also has serious questions about the safety of user data, which is already being captured more and more by many blockbuster and mobile games."
Rise in VPN Usage and Workarounds
While experts generally agree that reducing young people's exposure to harmful online content can be beneficial, many worry that Australian teenagers might simply find workarounds rather than comply with identification requirements. There has already been a noticeable surge in virtual private network (VPN) usage across Australia, with downloads of such apps skyrocketing among Australian phone users in recent weeks.
The VPN app Super Unlimited Proxy jumped from 40th among free iPhone apps in Australia on March 2nd to 7th by Sunday. Popular applications like Nord VPN and Proton VPN have also experienced sudden increases in downloads, according to Sensor Tower, a firm specializing in app store performance data and insights.
This trend suggests that rather than submitting to age verification processes, many users are seeking alternative methods to access restricted content, potentially undermining the effectiveness of Australia's new regulations while raising additional questions about digital privacy and security.
