Key 2026 updates for schools from the eSafety Commissioner

The eSafety Commissioner has written to Education Ministers outlining new national guidance on social media age restrictions, the Anti-Bullying Rapid Review and critical incident reporting. The updates reflect a strengthened focus on helping schools respond quickly and confidently to emerging online harms. A new Social Media Age Restrictions Hub is now available offering FAQs, teacher guidance, parent resources and youth-friendly resources. The ABRR highlights cyberbullying, image-based abuse including deepfakes and digital citizenship education, recognising eSafety's Toolkit for Schools as a best practice model. Schools are reminded to report online incidents, including deepfakes, in line with child safety frameworks and mandatory reporting. A legislative change concerning protections against deepfakes and image-based abuse came into effect on 16 February 2026, and from 10 December 2025, age-restricted social media platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent children under 16 from having accounts.

Age verification restricts compliant users from accessing platforms but does not prevent harm within the conversations children are already having, nor does it address offenders who bypass age gates or migrate to unmonitored channels. Legislative change concerning deepfakes came into effect in February 2026; operational response requires detecting when a deepfake is being used to coerce, extort or abuse a child in a direct message before the image is shared widely. The AI-generated CSAM and deepfake-detection module developed by Guardii, backed by Startmate, identifies coercion patterns and image-based abuse in real time across platforms, blocking the hostile contact before it reaches the child, surfacing the child at risk to a parent or authority immediately, and enabling rapid escalation in an emergency. Regulatory guidance establishes the mandate; targeted detection at the point of contact delivers the capability to prevent the harm.