Australia Implements Stricter Rules On Google, Bing To Combat AI-Generated Child Exploitation Material

Australia has taken a significant step towards safeguarding online spaces by introducing new regulations aimed at curbing the dissemination of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

The recently unveiled online safety code, announced on Friday, places obligations on major search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yahoo to take proactive measures to prevent the proliferation of synthetic child exploitation content.

This move comes as generative AI has rapidly evolved, posing new challenges for online safety.

“The use of generative AI has grown so quickly that I think it’s caught the whole world off guard to a certain degree,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement.

Grant said the code was a “great example” of how regulators and tech firms could work together to make the internet more safe.

She added; “We asked the industry to have another go at drafting the code to meet those expectations and I want to commend them for delivering a code that will protect the safety of all Australians who use their products.”

Earlier this year, the BBC reported that paedophiles have been using the AI software Stable Diffusion to create and sell life-like child sexual abuse material on content-sharing sites such as Patreon.