The future of digital regulation in Australia: Five policy principles for a safer digital world

  • Regulatory Models
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As Australia implements much needed digital regulation on a number of issues, there is a need to ensure policy initiatives are joined up and coherent. To avoid creating inconsistencies and gaps, and to ensure an effective approach to reshaping our digital regulatory landscape, this document presents five overarching policy principles that could function as a ‘North Star’ for policy makers.

These principles include:

  1. Systems and processes: Focus regulation on eliminating risks from systems and processes, expanding on our current focus on content moderation
  2. Community and societal risk: Expand regulations to addresses community & societal risks, building on our comprehensive approach to Individual risks
  3. Platform accountability and transparency: Ensure regulation creates accountability & transparency, rather than placing burden on individuals
  4. Comprehensive regulation: Ensure the regulatory framework is comprehensive, by improving our current regulatory gaps and disjunctures
  5. Strong regulators and enforced regulation: Ensure regulation is strong and enforced, by moving away from self- and co-regulation and resourcing and joining up regulators

This would create a more streamlined approach to regulation, replacing multiple disjointed obligations with more aligned upstream duties, and reducing the regulatory burden on Australia’s successful tech industry.

This approach would also be interoperable with emerging international requirements, ensuring Australian industry could expand into international markets with minimal regulatory friction.