The Privacy Advisor · Jedidiah Bracy, IAPP Editorial Director

Regulating online safety: A chat with Australia eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant

February 20, 2025·37 min·3 clips

80% of Australian 8-to-12-year-olds have social media accounts, and platforms have suspended only 13% of underage users — often because parents helped them sign up.

Australia has made a visible move here. The conversation starts with the Online Safety Act of 2021 and the later amendment setting a minimum age of 16 to create and use accounts on certain social media platforms. Julie Inman Grant brings the regulator's backstory. Appointed as Australia's first e-safety commissioner in 2017, she describes work that now touches platform design, child safety, online abuse, and AI. The main question is scope. Her office is looking at about a hundred platforms while preparing safety assessments for the Minister to consider. Her concern is not communication itself. The line is between young people finding connection and young people getting pulled into opaque systems built around harmful or deceptive design. Algorithms get a lot of attention: rabbit holes, dark patterns, data collection without knowledge or consent, and snapstreaks that keep users coming back. The framing stays practical. She rejects the idea that Australia is cutting off the internet or building a national firewall, while arguing the rules could make young people's online experiences a little better. Parents are not treated as enough on their own. Again and again, the responsibility shifts back toward platforms instead of leaving families and young users to fight opaque design systems by themselves. Reasonable steps are the tool. In the April-to-June window, she expects requirements shaped by scope decisions, safety assessments, and the age verification trial. Consultation matters too, including young people themselves. Near the close, the privacy link becomes plain: privacy and safety are more connected than opposed, especially as AI safety enters the same room.

As heard by us

A grounded look at Australia's age-gating push, platform design harms, and the privacy-safety overlap behind online regulation.

Australia's social media age floor gets a careful policy read, with eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant treating age-gating as one piece of a broader fight over platform design.

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Why you'd press play

You want a clear read on Australia’s under-16 social media rules and what platforms may have to do next.

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