This week, we tabled eSafety’s 2025–26 Annual Report in Parliament.
Public sector annual reports are formal accountability documents. They record performance, explain decisions and show how agencies such as ours use public resources.
This one also tells a much larger story because, over the past year, Australians asked more of – and now need more from – online safety regulation than ever before.
The social media minimum age changed the national conversation about children and platforms. AI made some forms of abuse easier to create and harder to contain. People looked to eSafety for help when online harm reached them, and they expected the services shaping their online lives to be held to account.
That is the context for the results in our report.
eSafety met every performance measure in a very demanding year. I take pride in that achievement, while knowing it sits inside a harder truth: the need for our work is growing faster than any single regulator can meet alone.
Public attention became practical action
More than 40,000 people took part in eSafety training and awareness sessions, well above our target. Many were professionals who support others, including educators and people working with communities at greater risk of online harm.
Public recognition of eSafety also grew. Awareness among surveyed Australians aged 16 and over increased 17 percentage points from last year to 55%.
That gives us a stronger base from which to help people. It also reminds us that many Australians may still be unsure where to turn when online harm impacts them or their loved ones.
The social media minimum age showed how public policy can become a major regulatory undertaking. Before the minimum age took effect, eSafety consulted with stakeholders and published regulatory guidance and extensive resources to support compliance and public understanding.
There were promising early results. Platforms reported restricting access to a significant number of accounts, and the overall holdings of under 16 accounts decreased by 20%. Australians also reported more online safety discussions between parents and children.
But as we monitored company compliance, we grew concerned with how some platforms were meeting the new obligation. We have since commenced five intensive regulatory investigations.
When people come to us in distress
People come to eSafety under great distress and, at times, during some of the worst moments in their lives. They want harmful material removed and abuse stopped. They also need advice they can understand, and trust, when the situation feels urgent.
Our complaints work continued to turn reports into action. We reviewed each matter and acted where the law allowed. When another organisation was better placed to help, we connected people with appropriate support.
Speed is important when harmful content is spreading, but so is discretion and fairness. Our decisions must be grounded in evidence and withstand scrutiny under the law.
That is how we protect people while maintaining public confidence in the powers the Australian Parliament has given to us.
Services must carry more responsibility
The choices these platforms make can reduce risk before abuse spreads.
Service provider responsibility is a foundation of safety by design. While voluntary principles have limits, clear guidance helped some providers understand what the law required. In other cases, we applied stronger regulatory pressure.
Together, these approaches produced tangible changes. Some services introduced age assurance. Others strengthened child safety settings or restricted access in Australia while they worked towards compliance.
These shifts prove regulation can reshape how services operate before harm occurs.
Ultimately, Australians should never have to carry the burden of online safety on their own. The onus should fall on the services that create these environments and profit from them.
AI has made safety by design more urgent
The rapid proliferation and adoption of AI added new urgency to our work.
AI has made it easier for harmful tools and exploitation to proliferate, including image-based abuse and sexual extortion. It has also made impersonation easier.
This is why safety cannot be bolted on after deployment. Nor can safety considerations cease after these powerful models are released into the wild.
Services that build these technologies, or give others access to them, need to test for misuse before harm becomes predictable. Safety by design must become standard practice across the AI lifecycle. If it doesn’t, people will continue to carry the cost once harm spreads.
My final foreword, eSafety’s continuing task
This annual report includes my final foreword as eSafety Commissioner.
I am now in my tenth year in the role. Over that decade, the technology ecosystem has changed dramatically but the core obligation for us has remained constant: to help Australians have safer and more positive online experiences, and to hold services to account for the risks their products create.
I have deep respect for everyone who comes to us for help, and for the eSafety staff and partners who meet that responsibility every day. They are truly heroes in my eyes.
The next phase of online safety will be demanding. Children will continue growing up inside digital environments shaped by powerful, profit-driven companies. People experiencing technology-facilitated abuse will still need fast, effective support as new technologies test the law and public expectations of digital safety.
The task ahead will require steady judgement, as well as new ways to see around corners and to extract meaningful transparency. We will keep helping Australians understand online harms and respond when serious abuse is reported. We will keep pressing services to build safer systems.
That is the standard Australians should expect. It is also the standard eSafety will keep working to meet.
