Australia’s proposed Digital Duty of Care would make online safety a responsibility of service providers, rather than leaving people to complain after harm occurs. The Australian Government published an exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 in early September.
The draft says a person responsible for an online service “must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, a safe online environment”. It identifies seriously harmful material and conduct, as well as material and conduct harmful to children. It also sets out requirements for managing design features, conducting risk assessments and taking “effective measures” in response.
Digital Duty of Care: Making Online Safety a Provider Duty
The proposal would attach a civil penalty of 60,000 penalty units to a failure to comply with the digital duty of care. The draft does not describe the duty as an automatic guarantee against every harm. Its standard is what is reasonably practicable, and its proposed measures include assessment and action by the service provider.
Public feedback on the exposure draft closed within two weeks of its publication. The Law Council of Australia acknowledged that online harms can affect mental health and wellbeing. It also noted that online abuse, image-based abuse and other harmful content can worsen adverse outcomes for children and other vulnerable people.
Leanne Ho, pro bono partner at Wotton Kearney, described the central change as moving responsibility from a person who has already been harmed to the companies providing the service. She said Australia’s legislative effort has been driven in part by cases against providers such as Meta, where claimants have used negligence and other established legal concepts.
Who the Draft Would Protect
Ho identified the draft’s separate treatment of adults and children as a possible fault line. She said adults can face many of the same online risks as children. The draft’s two classes of protection therefore raise questions about how the proposed rules would address risks experienced across age groups.
She also questioned whether the Digital Duty of Care bill’s focus on safety would address harms to democracy or social cohesion. Ho said Australia does not have a Human Rights Act or a Digital Services Act like the European Union’s, where risks identified in the draft are recognized under a human rights framework. She warned that democratic rights and freedoms could be at risk depending on the government and the views represented.
Ho described online harm as severe, citing Meta cases involving suicide, body image and bullying. Ho was describing the cases, not stating findings in the draft bill.
The discussion connects with other legal coverage examining how government rules intersect with individual rights, including this report on vehicle safety and privacy and this account of government accountability.
Community Groups Prepare to Respond
Wotton Kearney examined the draft while supporting the Human Rights Commission and later held an event for community-sector organizations, not-for-profits and others. The aim was to explain the bill’s provisions and how they might apply to people those organizations represent.
The firm and Digital Rights Watch also prepared “Build your own submission,” a resource for Community Legal Centres. Ho said it uses case studies to help groups consider which clients might benefit from the proposed protections and whether adults or children would be covered. The examples also ask whether harms to democracy or social cohesion fall within the draft’s approach.
Ho said technology companies are likely to engage with the exposure draft because of their business concerns, while community organizations may have fewer resources to do so. The resource and public discussion were intended to help those groups examine the proposal’s details. Further engagement with the draft is the next step described in the source.
Readers following related questions about technology and legal responsibility can also see this report on AI agent liability. For the proposed Australian duty itself, the Law Society Journal report details the bill and the views of people involved in the discussion.
