The BOSE Determination sets out the Australian Government's expectations for online service providers, including social media services.
It aims to improve industry transparency and accountability, and protect Australians from unlawful and harmful activity that is covered by the Online Safety Act 2021.
The Determination includes new additional expectations, including:
- ensuring that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in the design and operation of any service likely to be accessed by children
- requiring companies to provide-on request of the eSafety Commissioner-a report on the number of active end-users of services in Australia, broken down according to the number of users who are children or adults
- considering user safety in the design and operation of generative AI, and proactively minimising the extent to which online services are used to produce or facilitate unlawful or harmful material (including deepfake non-consensual intimate images)
- incorporating user-safety in the design and operation of recommender systems, and proactively minimising the extent to which they amplify unlawful or harmful material
- detecting (including proactively) as well as enforcing breaches of a service's terms of use, along with an example of a reasonable step to have processes in place for addressing hate speech where it breaches these terms
- making available controls that give end-users the choice and autonomy to support safe online interactions.
The BOSE Determination amendments were informed by a consultation held in late 2023 to early 2024, which received 51 submissions.
An independent statutory review of the Online Safety Act 2021 is ongoing, led by Ms Delia Rickard PSM.
The review is a broad ranging examination of the operation and effectiveness of the Act and will consider what changes are needed to make sure Australia's online safety laws remain fit for purpose.
