JOURNALIST: Can I start by asking about gambling? What more do you have to do before you formally respond to the Murphy review?

COMMUNICATIONS AND SPORT MINISTER, ANIKA WELLS: Well, Minister Plibersek and I have to pick up the work that we took over from Ministers Rishworth and Rowland last term. Most of the federal recommendations sit within the social services platform and some sit with me, and so we’ve been continuing that work. I’ve met with all sides. We had GHLEE in the building last week who are the people with lived gambling experience, gambling harm experience. We want to see the pathway forward and that’s my job to try and find a pathway forward and that work continues.

JOURNALIST: So still meetings to go in terms of either side?

WELLS: I wouldn’t say either side, but yes, I’ve got to keep working on it and so does Minister Plibersek. We’re having a look at all 31 recommendations, most of which sit in social services, some of which ask state and territories to do particular things, some of which ask for MoG changes, some of which ask for budget allocations, so the work continues.

JOURNALIST: Minister, 100 days left until the social media ban starts.

WELLS: It’s exciting, isn’t it?

JOURNALIST: Well, there’s plenty more to come still in terms of those reasonable steps which are really the key for what those social media platforms are going to have to comply with. When can we expect to see more detail about those?

WELLS: You’ll see more from the eSafety Commissioner and I in September to that end but that work continues every day behind the scenes with social media platforms, with the eSafety Commission and with my office. I think today’s age assurance trial shows us that age assurance can be private, efficient and effective. There is no excuse for social media platforms not to have a combination of age assurance methods in their platforms ready for 10 December.

JOURNALIST: But in particular, it did show that different technologies had different levels of accuracy. Some of the facial recognition stuff had significant age error bands, two to three years on either side. Is there a risk in not being more prescriptive with the platforms about which technologies they should use?

WELLS: Well, Tom, you would have seen on page 896 or whatever it was that there’s also tech where you can determine how old someone is based on how they move their hand, which I find fascinating. It’s a fascinating space. This is emerging technology. It’s moving very quickly. But these are some of the world’s richest companies. They are at the forefront of AI. They use the data that we give them for a bevy of commercial purposes. I think it is reasonable to ask them to use that same data and tech to keep kids safe online.

JOURNALIST: The report talked about VPNs and stopping kids from using those and other forgery and getting around the ban. How will that work and is there technology associated with that?

WELLS: Of course, we’re looking at circumvention and having met Australian children in my time, I’m sure you have as well, I think we can all trust in the fact that some people will try and get around it. But the best real-life example that we have in this space is when TikTok was switched off temporarily in the States. And what we learned out of that example was that the vast majority of people who tried to use VPNs to circumvent the system were unsuccessful. Companies like Netflix or TikTok have extremely sophisticated geo-sat blocking systems in place to protect themselves. I think it is reasonable to ask them to use that same tech to protect Australian kids.

JOURNALIST: Can you give assurances that people over the age of 16 won’t be affected negatively by this? I mean, most Australians [indistinct] age verification to make sure that you’re over 16 whether you’re under 16 or not. How is this going to affect the grandmas of Australia, I guess, who want to get on Facebook to talk to their kids?

WELLS: Well, for the age assurance policy enthusiasts out there, this is captured by three tranches, the report tells us. There’s age verification which is when you hand your driver’s license over at the Bottle-O because you look like you might be under 25. There’s age estimation, which is when you use scanning text, so like when you’re adding your face ID to a new phone. And there’s age inference, when a particular platform can tell that you’re talking to 65-year-olds about caravanning or you’re talking to 13-year-olds about KPop Demon Hunters, infers what age you are at.

So, the fact that social media platforms can use a pick and mix of these different technologies, it gives us confidence. It means that kids who are in that 13 to 16 bracket might need a more layered approach from platforms. But it also means that for older Australians, there needs to be appeal rights. And we have put in the rules that there needs to be a way- if there’s a social media decision that you disagree with, you can appeal it. And the onus would be that happens quickly. And I would also say that it is in the social media platform’s interest to keep as many people online as possible and they’ll be doing their best to keep granny online.

JOURNALIST: Is social media just the start? I know in the UK they’ve put age verification on things like pornography sites. Would you look at potentially using this technology at other parts of the internet as well?

WELLS: Well, that’s actually how this age assurance trial came into place. It was an attempt to work out how we can be safer about people navigating porn and exploitation online. I think the UK example is a bit different because … I would imagine that people who are using porn websites are trying to give as little data as possible to that website so they have a far reduced dataset when navigating age assurance. People who are on social media are giving huge amounts of data voluntarily that allows age assurance to be far more effective.

JOURNALIST: Did you meet with Usman Khawaja last week?

WELLS: No.

JOURNALIST: Just on a separate issue, the Teals are introducing a private member’s bill today for safer e-bike legislation. Is that something you think should be in the remit of Federal Parliament, looking at e-bikes and the safety around them?

WELLS: I am wheelie excited to see those Teals come peddling up the hill, but I’ll be focusing on federal laws today.