David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion by the member for Fisher is very important—in fact, one of the more important private member's motions that have come to this chamber. Identity verification is the root issue, and the need to install it into social media. Social media is an essential evil, almost. It's part of life now. We all have horror stories of what happens on social media to young people, naive people, old people. There are scammers. There are people who used to be burglars at night or violent offenders in the general public. They are the highwaymen of the digital age. They prey on the assumption that they are never identified as the real perpetrator, so identity verification is everything. The rule of law depends on identity. If you don't know who is doing something wrong, how do you sue them or put them in jail or charge them? It is fundamental. How do legal titles exist unless, at the end of the chain of legal titles, you have a real person?

Identity is everything, and identity verification on social media is key to stopping all the social media ills that we're all familiar with. We operate in that field, as active politicians, and we've had to identify ourselves and go through lots of hoops to convince Facebook and Instagram that we are real people. If it can be done for us, why isn't it done for everyone on social media? We need to get into the social media space—not through the eSafety Commissioner; this should be an international movement. We can do our bit, but, as we have all seen, our eSafety Commissioner is like a mosquito bite to social media giant companies. They just brush us off. Admittedly, we can do stuff within our digital boundaries—geolocking—but we need to get identity confirmed so that we can defend our young people, older people and naive people from scammers, grifters, people grooming children, child abusers, violent offenders and the mid-African scammers, who seem to have a field day in Australia.

It has been alleged by several speakers that we did nothing about this. We put up a committee of inquiry into this very issue and made many recommendations. In an attempt to prevent technology facilitated abuse, the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, in 2021, did recommend the introduction of identity verification for social media platforms to strip malicious actors of their anonymity. We have now the emergence of artificial intelligence. That is yet another critical issue that will make everyone vulnerable if the person getting the fake persona on social media isn't verified.

Mr Deputy Speaker Freelander, you could appear in an AI generated video soon, as could senators in this building. You don't just have to be highly known actors or billionaires to get scammed. Everyone could scam anyone if we don't have proof of identity. We have the technology. We can't say it's too hard or too difficult. We have this thing—blockchain. Why can't we all get a digital blockchain badge that we have to submit to social media so that users knows if we're a real person. Then they'll know you are a real person. Unless we really get more technologically advanced than blockchain, we should be able to have a way of making it quick and easy without displaying all our details. It's just that rubber stamp: yes, that's a real person. A lot of these problems will then vanish because, if you're known and you're saying outrageous, libellous stuff or you're running a scam, people can track you down.

This is a really important issue. I'd like to thank the member for Fisher for putting it up. We want our children to be safe on social media. We've got to realise that, for kids, social media is not your friend. Wait till you grow up. Like driving and voting and serving your country, you have to be over a certain age.

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