ACMA set out draft rules for mobile chat rooms

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 06 November 2005 12:47

IT Policy - Regulation

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has released a draft guide to measures that may be implemented by providers of mobile chat room services to enhance the safety of children in chat rooms accessed via mobile phones.

Under rules adopted by ACMA in June 2005 - the Telecommunications Service Provider (Mobile Premium Services) Determination 2005 (No.1) - providers of mobile chat services must conduct an assessment of the risk of the service being used to facilitate illegal contact between children and adults and implement safety measures in each mobile chat service that are at least commensurate with this risk. Providers of mobile chat services must implement appropriate safety measures for their mobile chat services within 60 days after ACMA has published the final Safety Measures Notice.

However these need not necessarily be those set out by the ACMA, which says that: "the safety measures that are implemented may be based on those set out in the final Safety Measures Notice or, alternatively, service providers may implement another measure that they have determined will minimise the potential for the service to be used to facilitate illegal contact."
 
The ACMA says the draft rules "are intended to provide a framework within which safety in mobile chat services may be enhanced without imposing undue financial and administrative burdens."


Measures set out in the draft range from informing children and parents of the risks, through automatically filtering of chat room traffic, to age restricted access to certain chat rooms.

Comments are due by Friday 25 November. The draft s is available on the ACMA website here.