National cabinet has endorsed the federal government's legislation to ban people under the age of 16 from using social media. Tasmania proposed lowering the age to 14 but didn't want to stand in the way of national uniformity.
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00:00Prime Minister Anthony Albanese essentially got what he wanted, which was an endorsement
00:06from state and territory leaders around the country to back in this proposal of having
00:11a minimum age of 16 for social media use.
00:15The Prime Minister did say though that the Tasmanian Premier did want that age to be
00:2014, but decided to go with the rest of the group so there could be a uniform position
00:25around the country.
00:27Now in terms of what happens next, this legislation will be introduced into Parliament here in
00:32Canberra a little later this year.
00:34It's expected to get the support from the opposition.
00:37They have been calling for a minimum age of 16 for some time now and then once it becomes
00:44law, 12 months later the minimum age will be enforced.
00:48So that gives social media companies, the government says, some time to be able to get
00:53their act together.
00:54This is the Prime Minister speaking earlier, talking about the positive benefits it could
00:59have for children.
01:00One of the discussions that we had with Premiers and Chief Ministers today was an analogy drawn
01:05between the banning of phones in classrooms and the feedback from that, controversial
01:14to some when it was introduced, is just overwhelmingly positive.
01:19Now some other details we do know about this proposal is that it will still include kids
01:24who might currently be on social media.
01:26So if you're 13 or 14 and using Instagram or TikTok, when this ban does come into effect
01:33in potentially 12 months' time, you'll still be included in this ban, even if your parents
01:38are okay with you using social media.
01:41Now we have heard from Meta, the parent company behind Facebook and Instagram, their concern
01:48is exactly how this is going to be monitored.
01:51They say it makes more sense to do it via an app store because they say when you set
01:56up a phone or device, it does already collect your age.
02:01When you get a new phone or a new device, you do spend a bit of time sitting down as
02:05a family setting it all up and age information is collected at that time.
02:10And so there is a really simple solution there that at that one point in time, then the verification
02:15can occur.
02:17Now there have been questions about privacy in all of this because some tech groups have
02:22said that for it to work, users would need to hand over identification like a driver's
02:27licence or have some sort of face check.
02:29In response to questions about privacy today, the Prime Minister says that is one of the
02:34reasons behind this 12-month implementation process to be able to iron out some of those
02:40concerns.