Tech giants under fire in Australia for failing online child protection standards
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner found tech giants like Apple and Google failed to track abuse reports or disclose safety staff numbers, prompting legally enforceable notices requiring regular updates on child protection efforts.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner report showed that tech giants, including Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, have failed to act against online child sexual abuse. Namely, it was found that Apple and YouTube do not track the number of abuse reports they receive or how quickly they respond, raising serious concerns. Additionally, both companies failed to disclose the number of trust and safety staff they employ, highlighting ongoing transparency and accountability issues in protecting children online.
In July 2024, the eSafety Commissioner of Australia took action by issuing legally enforceable notices to major tech companies, pressuring them to improve their response to child sexual abuse online.
These notices legally require recipients to comply within a set timeframe. Under the order, each companies were required to report eSafety every six months over a two-year period, detailing their efforts to combat child sexual abuse material, livestreamed abuse, online grooming, sexual extortion, and AI-generated content.
While these notices were issued in 2022 and 2023, there has been minimal effort by the companies to take action to prevent such crimes, according to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.
Key findings from the eSafety commissioner are:
- Apple did not use hash-matching tools to detect known CSEA images on iCloud (which was opt-in, end-to-end encrypted) and did not use hash-matching tools to detect known CSEA videos on iCloud or iCloud email. For iMessage and FaceTime (which were end-to-end encrypted), Apple only used Communication Safety, Apple’s safety intervention to identify images or videos that likely contain nudity, as a means of ‘detecting’ CSEA.
- Discord did not use hash-matching tools for known CSEA videos on any part of the service (despite using hash-matching tools for known images and tools to detect new CSEA material).
- Google did not use hash-matching tools to detect known CSEA images on Google Messages (end-to-end encrypted), nor did it detect known CSEA videos on Google Chat, Google Messages, or Gmail.
- Microsoft did not use hash-matching tools for known CSEA images stored on OneDrive18, nor did it use hash-matching tools to detect known videos within content stored on OneDrive or Outlook.
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