PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Protecting the age of innocence Report of the inquiry into age verification for online wagering and online pornography House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs February 2020 CANBERRA © Commonwealth of Australia ISBN 978-1-76092-068-5 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-76092-069-2 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Contents Executive summary ......................................................................................................................... vii Membership of the Committee ....................................................................................................... ix Terms of reference ............................................................................................................................ xi List of abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... xiii List of recommendations ................................................................................................................ xv The Report 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Related inquiries ................................................................................................................... 1 The current inquiry ............................................................................................................... 2 Conduct of the inquiry ......................................................................................................... 3 Structure of the report .......................................................................................................... 4 2 Methods for online age verification .................................................................... 5 Attributes of an effective age-verification model ............................................................. 6 Privacy and security ................................................................................................. 6 Accuracy and effectiveness ................................................................................... 10 Impact on business and users ............................................................................... 13 Technical standards for age verification .......................................................................... 15 Guidance provided under the UK Digital Economy Act .................................. 16 PAS 1296 Age Checking code of practice ............................................................ 18 Trusted Digital Identity Framework .................................................................... 19 iii iv European Union General Data Protection Regulation....................................... 21 Overview of methods for online age verification ........................................................... 22 Verification based on identity documents ........................................................... 23 Verification based on consumer information or other databases .................... 25 Verification based on biometric data .................................................................. 26 Age estimation ........................................................................................................ 28 Age screening .......................................................................................................... 29 Online and physical-world rights and obligations ......................................................... 30 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 31 3 Age verification for online pornography .......................................................... 35 Nature of children’s exposure to pornography .............................................................. 35 Effect of children’s exposure to pornography ................................................................. 39 Social impacts .......................................................................................................... 42 Regulation of online pornography in Australia .............................................................. 45 Age verification for online pornography in other jurisdictions.................................... 46 UK Digital Economy Act ....................................................................................... 46 Other international approaches ............................................................................ 54 Evidence on implementation in Australia ....................................................................... 55 Possible scope ......................................................................................................... 55 Mechanisms for enforcement ................................................................................ 58 Privacy regulation and auditing ........................................................................... 61 Community and industry consultation ............................................................... 62 Regulatory oversight ............................................................................................. 64 Evidence on complementary measures ............................................................................ 64 Filtering and blocking ........................................................................................... 65 Safety by Design initiative ..................................................................................... 66 Education ................................................................................................................. 67 Integration with a wider eSafety approach ......................................................... 70 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 70 v 4 Age verification for online wagering ................................................................ 75 Access to online wagering by children and young people ............................................ 75 Estimates of gambling by children and young people ...................................... 76 Social impacts .......................................................................................................... 77 Regulation of online wagering in Australia .................................................................... 78 Customer verification and/or age verification for online wagering in other jurisdictions ............................................................................................................ 81 Views on further changes in Australia ............................................................................. 83 Other changes .......................................................................................................... 86 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 88 Labor Members' Additional Comments ....................................................................... 91 Appendix A. Statement on the principles for the treatment of evidence .............. 97 Appendix B. List of submissions ................................................................................... 99 Appendix C. List of exhibits ......................................................................................... 111 Appendix D. List of public hearings ........................................................................... 113 Executive summary The Committee’s inquiry considered the potential role for online age verification in protecting children and young people in Australia from exposure to online wagering and online pornography. Evidence to the inquiry revealed widespread and genuine concern among the community about the serious impacts on the welfare of children and young people associated with exposure to certain online content, particularly pornography. The Committee heard that young people are increasingly accessing or being exposed to pornography on the internet, and that this is associated with a range of harms to young people’s health, education, relationships, and wellbeing. Similarly, the Committee heard about the potential for exposure to online wagering at a young age to lead to problem gambling later in life. Online age verification is not a new concept. However, the Committee heard that as governments have sought to strengthen age restrictions on online content, the technology for online age verification has become more sophisticated, and there are now a range of age-verification services available which seek to balance effectiveness and ease-of-use with privacy, safety, and security. In considering these issues, the Committee was concerned to see that, in so much as possible, age restrictions that apply in the physical world are also applied in the online world. The Committee recognised that age verification is not a silver bullet, and that protecting children and young people from online harms requires government, industry, and the community to work together across a range of fronts. However, the Committee also concluded that age verification