Australia Doubles Fines for Platforms Letting Kids In

A teenager taps past a selfie prompt and into a social feed. Two taps. No ID. No questions. Just another account created in a minute. That is the exact loophole Canberra wants to close.

Why the government turned the screw

Australia has moved to double the top penalty for social networks that fail to block under-16s from signing up, raising the maximum from about €30 million to roughly €60 million for systematic breaches. At the same time, the internet safety commissioner gains broader powers to demand evidence that platforms are actually trying to stop minors from creating accounts.

The law, rolled out about six months ago, has already led to more than 5 million accounts belonging to under-16s being restricted or deactivated. But numbers and intentions are not the same as results. Independent studies and watchdog reports show many age-verification systems, including selfie checks, are routinely bypassed by determined children. In some cases, platforms do not even challenge a user’s declared age.

Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat are all within the scope of the regulation. Canberra is signaling that token checks will no longer cut it. It wants tangible proof: logs, policies, technical measures and testing data that show platforms are preventing kids from slipping through.

Other governments are watching closely. Legislators in the UK recently said they will widen restrictions to include gaming and live-streaming platforms, underscoring a broader international push to protect young people online. The ripple effect is clear: national rules are beginning to shape global platform behavior, not the other way around.

There are hard questions here. How do you balance safety with privacy? How do you verify age without creating new risks? Technology can help. But technology can also be a fig leaf for inaction. Short-term fixes—like asking for a selfie—can look effective on paper and fail in practice.

The new Australian stance insists on accountability and documentation. Regulators will now be able to ask companies for proof of the steps taken, the tests run, and the failures found. That transparency requirement changes the conversation from promises to evidence.

Platforms will need to show, not just say, that children are being kept out.