{"id":67831,"date":"2026-11-09T23:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T19:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=67831"},"modified":"2026-11-09T23:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T19:55:07","slug":"google-says-new-australian-internet-safety-bill-could-cut-off-under-18s-from-gmail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2026\/11\/09\/google-says-new-australian-internet-safety-bill-could-cut-off-under-18s-from-gmail\/","title":{"rendered":"Google says new Australian internet safety bill could cut off under-18s from Gmail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A proposed Australian internet law could force Google to block under-18s from using its Gmail service, an Australia-based company \u200bpolicy head said on Monday, underscoring an industry warning that \u200cthe draft regulation risks overreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the Digital Duty of Care legislation, which has already passed Australia&#8217;s House of Representatives but needs cross-party support to pass \u200bthe Senate, internet companies must show they are taking steps \u200bto weed out harmful content or face a fine of \u2060up to A$109 million ($75.1 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online companies and free speech advocates \u200bsay the law could give regulators too much discretion to decide what \u200bis harmful, placing pressure on platforms to take down content. Google&#8217;s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/markets\/companies\/GOOGL.O\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">(GOOGL.O), opens new tab<\/a> warning reflects concern that the law could filter into everyday parts of the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A section \u200bof the law requiring age checks if there was a \u200brisk of a child seeing pornography &#8220;could require us to age assure and block access \u200cto \u2060everyday communication services like messaging, email and private file storage&#8221;, said Rachel Lord, head of policy in Australia and New Zealand for Google&#8217;s YouTube streaming website, at a Senate hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We are talking about \u200bpotentially intrusive monitoring \u200bwithin private communications \u2060or file storage,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representatives from Meta, TikTok and Snap voiced similar concerns, warning the bill could \u200bchill online communications by allowing regulators broad discretion \u200bto determine \u2060what content or conduct is harmful while replacing some existing mandatory industry codes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several argued the uncertainty created a risk platforms would over-moderate content \u2060to \u200bavoid large regulatory penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The government has said \u200ba broad set of rules is the only way to ensure a safe internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A proposed Australian internet law could force Google to block under-18s from using its Gmail service, an Australia-based company \u200bpolicy head said on Monday, underscoring an industry warning that \u200cthe draft regulation risks overreach. Under the Digital Duty of Care legislation, which has already passed Australia&#8217;s House of Representatives but needs cross-party support to pass &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":67832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67833,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67831\/revisions\/67833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}