Children and social media

Behind the screen: The reality of age assurance and social mediaaccess for young Australians Transparency report Table of contents Commissioner’s foreword...................................................................................................................5Introduction.........................................................................................................................................9Purpose of this report...............................................................................................................................9Our approach.......................................................................................................................................10The state of play: children under 13 are accessing social media.....................................................11Why this matters: The real-world impact on children’s online safety...........................................13A path forward: encouraging uplift and consistency.........................................................................14Key findings.........................................................................................................................................16Methodology.......................................................................................................................................24Insights from the Children and Social Media Survey........................................................................24Insights from information requests under the Basic Online Safety Expectations......................25How to read this report.....................................................................................................................26How many Australian children are using social media?..................................................................27What did children say about using social media?.............................................................................29What did social media services report?..............................................................................................33Whatdoes this information tell us?.....................................................................................................36What tools and technologies were being used by social media services to assess the age of end-users?.............................................................................................................................................37What did social media services report?..............................................................................................38What does this information tell us?.....................................................................................................43What steps did services take when they found users who may have been under 13?.................44What did social media services report?..............................................................................................44What did children say?...........................................................................................................................46What does this information tell us?.....................................................................................................47Did the services undertake any research todevelop or implement age assessment tools?........48What did social media services report?..............................................................................................48What does this information tell us?.....................................................................................................49Did the services undertake any research to estimate the number of underage users?...............50What did social media services report?..............................................................................................50What did children say?............................................................................................................................51What does this information tell us?.....................................................................................................52How were children accessing social media services?.....................................................................52What did children say?...........................................................................................................................53 What does this information tell us?.....................................................................................................56What was revealed about parental consent?..................................................................................57What did services report?......................................................................................................................57What did children say?...........................................................................................................................5