evidoria

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Good practice

eSafety Commissioner's Image-Based Abuse Scheme — Australia's Statutory Response to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Sharing & Deepfake Abuse

Australia · Melbourne · See the Australia profile

Australia's civil-penalty scheme for non-consensual intimate image sharing and deepfake abuse saw reports rise 960% (849 in 2018/19 to 9,060 in 2022/23), an 89.9% platform removal-success rate, and a court-ordered $343,500 penalty against one offender.

849
Reports to the scheme (2018/19)
9,060
Reports to the scheme (2022/23)
89.9 %
Platform removal success rate

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
eSafety Commissioner (Australian Government)
Period
2015–present (expanded 2021)
Keywords
online safety, gender-based violence, digital regulation, law enforcement

Context

Australia's eSafety Commissioner scheme, established under the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 and expanded by the Online Safety Act 2021, provides civil-penalty and rapid-removal powers against non-consensual intimate image sharing, including AI-generated deepfakes, with removal-notice compliance windows cut from 48 to 24 hours and penalties up to $111,000.

Results

Reports to the scheme rose 960%, from 849 in 2018/19 to 9,060 in 2022/23 (19,468 total across the period), with 1,961 removal requests sent to platforms and an 89.9% full-or-partial removal success rate; the Federal Court ordered one individual to pay $343,500 for posting deepfake images of prominent Australian women.

Conclusions

In the 2024-25 reporting period only 4 formal takedown notices were issued against 219 informal removal requests, and a 2026 Federal Court ruling required merits review of informal requests -- evidence that enforcement capacity has not kept pace with report volume.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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