Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Werriwa for her question. This week is National Child Protection Week. One of the Albanese government's top priorities is keeping children safe. The Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, led by the Australian Federal Police, does extraordinary work to prevent harm to children. The task is great. Last year alone, the centre received more than 40,000 reports of online child exploitation. Currently, the centre's work involves the manual examination of tens of thousands of images each year. A project called My Pictures Matter can change that. The Australian Federal Police and Monash University are inviting adult Australians to share images of themselves as children to support a new ethical artificial intelligence tool that will detect child abuse material in videos or photos shared online or seized during criminal investigations. This new tool will be able to quickly detect child abuse material on websites and offenders' electronic devices and triage them for investigators. The project was launched in 2022, but it needs more images to succeed. I understand that if just 100,000 Australian adults contribute a photo from their childhood, the tool can be put to work within 12 months. I'll be sharing an image of my childhood to support this project, and I hope other members will too. All adult Australians can take up the fight against child abuse by sharing a photo of themselves. Visit mypicturesmatter.org, upload a picture and help keep our children safe.

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