Australians will soon need to verify their age to use search engines

12 July 2025

Ange Lavoipierre, writing for The Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

At the end of June, Australia quietly introduced rules forcing companies such as Google and Microsoft to check the ages of logged-in users, in an effort to limit children’s access to harmful content such as pornography. But experts have warned the move could compromise Australians’ privacy online and may not do much to protect young people.

We’re all for protecting children going online, but this initiative, as it stands, may be way too easy to circumvent. For instance, search engine users could remain logged out of their account, or make use of a VPN, to trick search engines into believing they are outside the country.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if ways to shutdown these options are eventually introduced. In the same way, say, Netflix can make using VPNs difficult. In addition, anyone accessing a search engine in Australia may be forced to actually login to their (age verified) account before they can do searches.

The search engine companies, after all, surely will not want to be in contravention of Australian laws. It seems at some point then, Australian search engine users will need to verify their age. Privacy advocates however are rightly concerned. Certain of the search engines already know enough about our activity online; do we want them knowing our personal details as well?

A sensible solution would be to use a digital identity service. These are independent of search engines, and any other tech companies, who might be required to confirm the age of their users.

One such service I use to both verify my identity, and I imagine age, when dealing with Australian government departments online, is Digital iD, which was developed by Australia Post. (Don’t you be saying the post office is incapable of innovation…)

MyID, created by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), serves a similar purpose.

Of course, we’re having to tell someone our age, and supply a verifying document — an Australian passport, or drivers licence — to do so, but at least the process is handled by an Australian government agency. Perhaps you don’t particularly trust those entities either, but I think they’re a far safer option than an offshore tech company.

In short, identity services such as MyID, or Digital iD, are saying the user is aged eighteen or over. They are not divulging actual ages, or dates of birth.

If the Australian government is so insistent we verify our age to access search engines, and who knows what other apps in the future, then the least they can do is allow us to use an Australian digital identity service to do so.