AHISA SUBMISSION

Department of Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts

19 February 2020

Online safety legislative reform

AHISA’s submission gave support to enhancement of the Office of the eSafety Commissioner and the powers of the Commissioner, as proposed under a new Online Safety Act. In particular AHISA supported empowering the eSafety Commissioner to: 
Determine whether particular online content requires take down action without referral to the Classification Board
Address harmful content wherever it is posted
Implement targeted blocks of terrorist or extreme violent material during an online crisis event
Request or require that a platform or service provider enforces their terms of service in relation to a user who has been found to have posted cyberbullying material of Australian children, apply account restrictions in serious cases, or request or require certain other enforcement actions
Shorten the time allowed for online service providers and social media companies to respond to take-down notices from 48 to 24 hours for both the cyberbullying and image-based abuse schemes
Increase governance of principles-based codes for industry to address harmful content, determine what constitutes seriously harmful content and make legislative instruments to capture additional types of seriously harmful content should they emerge.

AHISA also supported the creation of a new Online Safety Act as a single legislative instrument covering separate components of the online safety regulatory framework.