I was regretting reading the comments, until I saw this:

Hi, I’m one of the cyber security experts consulted early on around the social media age restriction legislation.

Concerns about any centralised database of Australian citizens and their age maintained by the government was canvassed early on and advised very heavily against very early on, as was sharing of existing government databases. These things are not in the legislation. There is no bipartisan support for the Australian ID card. There is no government honeypot of personally information in this legislation. Per the consultaiton process, the vast majority of persons over the age of 18 already have their age verified through these platforms using existing methods such as credit card verification.

The legislation explicitly states it will be up to the social media companies to enforce the age restrictions. The government, through the E-Safety Commisioner, is to monitor the system not to run the system. The legislation does NOT mandate a method for social media companies to enforce this system or allow them access to government systems. In fact… the existing acts specifically prohobit that.

This brings us to the Digital ID Act of 2024 (which comes into effect today) allows sharing of digital ID information between Federal and State governments. There are provisions to allow sharing with specific types of private organisations from December 2026 with some pretty serious restrictions. It’s also an opt-in system. A lot of the statements in the news stories you clipped from here are factually wrong if you read the actual legislation.

You shouldn’t confuse election pitches - whether from Labour or Liberal/National politicians - or statements by activists with a clear agenda with the actual policies that pass parliament.

deleted by creator