Online Safety 2021

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Online Safety Bill 2021

## What it does
This law creates an eSafety Commissioner who can investigate and force removal of harmful online content targeting Australian kids and adults. It sets rules for social media platforms, internet services, and hosting services to act quickly when someone reports cyberbullying, abuse, or non-consensual intimate images.

## Why it matters
If you or your child are harassed online, you now have a government authority to complain to who can actually make platforms take the content down. It puts legal responsibility on tech companies to respond to complaints, rather than leaving people to handle abuse alone.

## Key details
- **Who complains**: Australian kids (or parents/guardians on their behalf) can report cyberbullying; adults can report cyber-abuse or intimate images shared without consent
- **What platforms must do**: Social media services, internet hosts, and other online platforms must remove or disable access to reported material within set timeframes or face potential penalties
- **The eSafety Commissioner**: A new independent official investigates complaints, can issue removal notices, and has power to take action against companies that don't comply

Official Description

Introduced with the Online Safety (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021, the bill: retains and replicates certain provisions in the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 , including the non-consensual sharing of intimate images scheme; specifies basic online safety expectations; establishes an online content scheme for the removal of certain material; creates a complaints-based removal notice scheme for cyber-abuse being perpetrated against an Australian adult; broadens the cyber-bullying scheme to capture harms occurring on services other than social media; reduces the timeframe for service providers to respond to a removal notice from the eSafety Commissioner; brings providers of app distribution services and internet search engine services into the remit of the new online content scheme; and establishes a power for the eSafety Commissioner to request or require internet service providers to disable access to material depicting, promoting, inciting or instructing in abhorrent violent conduct for time-limited periods in crisis situations.

Committee Referrals

Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

24 Feb 2021

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

23 July 2021

Last checked by Crossbench

2 days ago

Full text indexed

2 days ago

🗳️

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

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