An Australian regulator has sent legal letters to the owner of Facebook, Meta Platforms, Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp, demanding they share their strategies to remove child abuse material on their platforms or face fines.
The Electronic Security Commissioner, a body created to protect Internet users, said it used laws that came into force in January to force tech giants to reveal the measures they were taking to detect and remove abusive material within the Internet. 28 days. If they did not, each of the companies would face a fine of A$555,000 ($383,000) per day.
The threat underscores Australia’s hard-line approach to regulating Big Tech companies from 2021, which has so far included laws requiring them to pay media outlets for displaying their content and laws requiring them to hand over account details. anonymous companies that publish defamatory material.
Meanwhile, Internet companies have been under pressure around the world to find a way to monitor encrypted messaging and streaming services for child abuse material without invading user privacy.
This activity is no longer confined to the hidden corners of the dark web, but is prevalent across the major platforms we and our children use every day,” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.
“As more companies move to encrypted messaging services and implement features like live streaming, the fear is that this horrible material will spread unchecked on these platforms,” she added.
A spokesman for Microsoft, which owns video calling service Skype, said the company had received the letter and planned to respond within 28 days.
A spokesman for Meta, which also owns the Whats App messaging service, said the company was still reviewing the letter but was continuing to “proactively engage with the electronic security commissioner on these important issues.”
Apple, which owns the Face-time video messaging service, the i Message messaging service and the i Cloud photo storage service, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The electronic security commissioner referred to figures provided by the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which said this year it had received 29.1 million reports of child abuse material from internet companies, from which only 160 were from Apple while 22 million were from Facebook.