As the Australian Government this week announced a public consultation regarding Australia's privacy laws, access to Facebook will today (22 July) be discussed at the Standing Committee of
As the Australian Government this week announced a public consultation regarding Australia's privacy laws, access to Facebook will today (22 July) be discussed at the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting in Adelaide.
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South Australian Attorney-General John Rau has placed Facebook on the agenda for today's meeting asking ministers to consider whether parents should be given legal rights to access their children's Facebook page and if so, whether this requires amendments to the Privacy Act. Rau has put forward the suggestion that the age of consent for Facebook be raised to 18 years.
"The South Australian Attorney-General John Rau has raised this issue as an issue of concern and in particular, the ability of parents to have removed from their child's Facebook account, images or information that they think might be prejudicial to their child's interests," Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland told reporters yesterday (21 July).
"Facebook itself, I think, regards age of consent for their purposes as being 13 years old but there has been concern expressed by some parents that the images being put up by their own children are prejudicial to the future career prospects."
Also on the agenda at today's meeting is the classification of computer games, with Rau calling for the abolishment of the MA15+ classification in South Australia in support of the Federal Government's push for a new R18+ classification.