Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has accepted a series of industry codes, that will see tougher age verification for access to online porn come into effect from March 9, 2026.
The eSafety Commissioner, Australia’s independent regulator for online safety, has been introducing new rules for online sites and platforms to prevent minors from accessing potentially harmful online content.
Those that provide porn will have to implement “appropriate age assurance measures” from six months after the codes were accepted, on September 9, 2025.
Sites and platforms that provide porn will also have to “take appropriate steps to test and monitor the effectiveness of its age assurance and access control measures over time”.
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, has described potentially harmful online content such as porn as “lawful but awful”.
As has been the case in the UK following tougher age verification rules being implemented recently, in Australia companies will be able to use various age check measures to comply with the new regulations. These could include submitting photo ID, facial scan estimation, credit card checks, third-party digital wallets or systems, or AI data checks.
The announcement of the March 9 deadline for age verification implementation comes shortly after an independent government-commissioned trial, which declared that age assurance technology in Australia can be achieved “privately, efficiently, and effectively”.
The Age Assurance Technology Trial did, however, find that some age verification processes involved “unnecessary data retention… in apparent anticipation of future regulatory needs”. Some critics of tougher age verification for online porn access say that verification methods risk users’ privacy.
Australian authorities are also introducing age verification for search engines, to help prevent minors finding potentially harmful content through them. Search engines and porn providers that don’t comply with new age verification standards face fines of up to AUS $49.5 million (US $32 million) for each breach.
A social media ban for children is also being implemented in Australia from December 2025. From then, you’ll have to be aged 16 or over to use social media in the country.
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