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Communications minister Michelle Rowland says the federal government is considering the possibility of further regulating dating apps, as the commonwealth continues its investigation of online safety around the services.
Further to Rowland’s morning media interviews, which Amy brought you earlier, the minister gave a short doorstop press conference in the Parliament House press gallery this morning.
Her office this morning announced Rowland had “issued a detailed information request to the top ten online dating services used by Australians about the extent of harms occurring on their services, and the safety policies and procedures they have in place to keep their Australian users safe”.
That information includes the number of reports the apps had received about sexual harassment and abuse, user bans, referrals to police, and the processes in place to keep banned users from creating new accounts.
Rowland said research had found three in four Australians using the apps have experienced some form of harm, but also that dating apps are the most common way to meet a new partner for young people, so the government was looking at further action.
Rowland said in her doorstop:
If we don’t get the kinds of responses we think should be forthcoming, we will consider further regulation here.
One of them could be, and this isn’t novel because it’s used across broadcasting and telco sectors, is some form of code of practice that is devised by the industry which could be subject to regulatory oversight and enforcement.
Work is still ongoing with state and territory attorneys general, the federal eSafety commissioner and relationship services, but Rowland said the recent focus on the sector – including a roundtable on safety in January – had seen apps voluntarily set up their own extra safety features.
It’s pleasing to see the focus on this area has had the effect of incentivising regulation in this area, with some of these dating apps introducing new safety features. Some of them, we’ve questioned why they are behind some paywall services because everyone should be entitled to safety.
It’s pleasing this has already focused the minds of these app providers on what they need to do better.
In a release this morning, Rowland and social services minister Amanda Rishworth said the government would “continue to put pressure on online dating services to be transparent about the safety of their users, making clear that services will be held to account for sexual harassment and abuse facilitated by their platforms”.