EXCLUSIVE: Australia’s criminology research agency will survey thousands of parents this year about their perceptions of the federal government’s forthcoming ban on under-16s holding social media accounts.

Researchers at the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) announced the plan at the agency’s official conference in Canberra this week.

The survey is the first consultation announced involving members of the general public since the government’s controversial one-day public submissions period received around 15,000 submissions in November 2024, just days before the legislation passed with Coalition support.

The AIC’s confidential survey will occur around mid-year and will involve a few thousand parents with children aged under 18 or under 16, Information Age understands.

The results are expected to inform government departments about the public’s view of the possible benefits and drawbacks of the contentious regulation, which is expected to become law by mid-December.

Anthony Morgan, a research manager at the AIC, said the survey would ask parents about “their perceptions of social media regulation” as an addendum to the agency’s annual Cybercrime in Australia survey.

“It is in relation to understanding people’s perceptions of what’s happening in response to the social media ban,” he told the 2025 AIC Conference on Tuesday.

Information Age understands the AIC has not decided if it will run another similar survey after the social media ban begins, but the agency is planning another broad Cybercrime in Australia survey in 2026.

The government’s social media ban legislation includes a review of the law within two years of it taking effect.

This will provide the government “an opportunity to recalibrate policies, if required, to be proportionate to changed behaviours — of both social media platforms and young people”, according to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts.

The office of Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government held "extensive consultation with young people, parents, mental health professionals, legal professionals, community and civil society groups, state and territory first ministers, and industry representatives in the development of the social media minimum age requirement".

The AIC’s 2023 Cybercrime in Australia report found “more frequent social media use was associated with significantly higher rates of cybercrime victimisation” in the 12 months prior to that survey, which studied almost 14,000 computer users.


AIC research manager Anthony Morgan speaks at the 2025 AIC Conference in Canberra. Photo: Supplied

The world ‘will be watching’ Australia’s ban

Forensic clinical psychologist Professor Ethel Quayle from the University of Edinburgh said experts around the world would be watching how Australia implemented and then examined its social media ban.

“We’ve all had our eye on Australia since you suddenly announced that you’re actually banning access for young people under the age of 16,” she told the AIC Conference on Wednesday.

“I think everybody stood up and took notice, especially at the speed that this has happened.”

Quayle said she would be “really interested” to see how Australia examined evidence of whether the ban worked as the government had proposed.

“People will be watching what difference this makes across a range of adolescent wellbeing measures, I’m sure,” she said.

Private consultations with tech companies

The government has continued to hold private consultations on its legislation with technology companies that operate social media platforms.

The consultations have seen major social media firms TikTok, Snap, and Meta (which operates the likes of Facebook and Instagram) criticise the government’s plan to make Google’s video platform YouTube exempt from the law.

The government said it planned to grant YouTube an exemption due to its educational content, along with other platforms such as Google Classroom, online games, and some messaging apps.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus speaks at the 2025 AIC Conference in Canberra. Photo: Supplied

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told the AIC Conference on Tuesday that the social media ban “places the onus on certain social media platforms —not young people or their parents — to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 years of age from having accounts”.

It remains unclear what would be considered “reasonable steps”, and exactly which platforms would be expected to uphold the law.

A trial of various age assurances technologies is also expected to report to the government by mid-year, with technology giants such as Apple and Google already detailing age assurances and estimation systems they have developed.

Australian officials and regulators are expected to share details of the nation’s plans with other governments and international experts at the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit in Amsterdam in April.