Australia restricts porn sites to 18+
Sydney, Australia, Mar 9 (EFE).-
Australia began implementing new digital safety rules on Monday requiring users to prove they are over 18 to access pornography and other restricted content online, the latest in a series of measures to strengthen the protection of minors in the digital environment.
The provisions are part of the so-called ‘Age-Restricted Material Codes,’ a set of safety rules that expand the country’s regulatory framework for online safety and require tech companies to implement stricter mechanisms to prevent children from accessing inappropriate material.
According to Julie Inman Grant, head of the regulatory body eSafety, in a statement released last week, the initiative aims to extend the same age restrictions that exist in the physical world to the digital realm.
She said that for decades society has agreed that there are certain things children are not physically, developmentally or emotionally equipped to deal with and that’s why the barriers have been put in place to protevt them.
“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,” Inman Grant said.
Under the new regulations, pornography websites, search engines, social media, app stores, online video games, and artificial intelligence (AI) systems will have to take measures to prevent minors from accessing adult content.
These measures include age verification systems using digital identification, facial recognition, or other methods considered reliable.
Until now, many websites only required users to click a box confirming they were of legal age, a practice authorities consider insufficient.
The regulations also apply to AI-powered chatbots, such as ChatGPT, which can generate sexually explicit content or content related to self-harm or suicide. These platforms will have to verify that users are at least 18 years old before allowing such interactions.
Search engines will also be required to blur results containing pornography or extreme violence by default when the user is unidentified or is a minor.
Regulator eSafety will oversee compliance with the rules and may impose fines of up to AU$49.5 million per violation.
This measure complements other recent initiatives by the country to regulate the digital environment, such as the introduction in December 2025 of age restrictions for social media use for those under 16. EFE
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