PILLAR Opposes Government Social Media Ban: Protect Kids
Without Building an Internet Surveillance Regime
Civil
liberties organisation PILLAR is urging the Government to
abandon its proposed ban on social media for New Zealanders
under 16, warning that protecting children online must not
become the justification for dramatically expanding
government regulation of the internet.
PILLAR
Executive Director Nathan Seiuli says the organisation
shares the Government’s concern about the very real harms
children can encounter online, but fundamentally disagrees
with the proposed solution.
“There is no question
that social media can expose children to serious harm.
Parents are right to be concerned, and the Government is
right to take those concerns seriously.
“But good
intentions do not automatically make good
law.”
PILLAR is particularly concerned that
enforcing an age-based social media ban risks requiring
platforms to establish the age of New Zealanders accessing
online services — potentially affecting millions of adults
in an attempt to prevent children from accessing
them.
“The fundamental problem with an under-16
social media ban is enforcement. To know who is under 16,
you first need a system capable of determining who everyone
is.
“That creates an obvious civil liberties
question: how much privacy should millions of law-abiding
adult New Zealanders be required to surrender in order to
enforce a restriction on children?”
PILLAR believes
New Zealand should be extremely cautious about normalising
widespread age-assurance systems, digital identity
requirements, biometric verification or other mechanisms
that could create infrastructure capable of tracking or
restricting lawful access to the internet.
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Seiuli says
online safety policy must also recognise the proper
distinction between the role of parents and the role of the
State.
“Parents should be empowered to decide when
and how their children use social media. Government should
give families better tools, better information and stronger
protections against genuinely harmful and illegal
material.
“What we should not do is quietly shift
responsibility from parents to a government-backed
regulatory system governing who can access lawful online
spaces.”
PILLAR also warns against importing
overseas internet regulation without properly examining its
consequences for privacy, freedom of expression and the
future relationship between citizens, technology companies
and the State.
“Once governments establish the
infrastructure to verify identity, regulate access and
determine which online services citizens may use, the
question quickly becomes what that infrastructure will be
used for next.
“New Zealand should not build a
digital checkpoint at the entrance to the internet and
simply trust that future governments will never expand its
purpose.”
PILLAR instead supports a targeted
approach to online harm that places responsibility as close
as possible to families and focuses state intervention on
clearly defined harms.
That should include stronger
parental controls at the device level, improved digital
resilience and online-safety education, effective tools to
combat intimate-image abuse and exploitation, and targeted
enforcement against illegal content and criminal
behaviour.
Where age assurance is genuinely necessary
— such as access to clearly defined adult-only services
— it should be tightly limited, privacy-preserving and
subject to strong safeguards.
“We reject the false
choice that says you either support this ban or you do not
care about children.
“We can protect children
without treating every New Zealander as someone who must
prove their age before participating in the digital
world.
“The test for any internet regulation should
be simple: is it necessary, is it proportionate, does it
actually work, and can it be achieved without unnecessarily
restricting the rights and privacy of everyone
else?
“If the Government cannot meet that test, it
should not proceed.”
PILLAR is calling on Cabinet
and Parliament to reject a blanket under-16 social media ban
and instead pursue targeted, evidence-based measures that
protect children while preserving the privacy, freedom and
digital rights of all New
Zealanders.
