SUBMISSION ANROWS Submission: Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026
This submission sets out ANROWS’s response to the exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026.
The submission will be useful to policymakers, government agencies and advocates working on online safety, technology-facilitated abuse and the prevention of gender-based violence.
ANROWS supports the Bill’s shift from a reactive, content-focused approach to a preventative and enforceable duty of care for online services.
This submission sets out why gender should be made an explicit and central dimension of that duty of care and outlines six recommendations covering the Bill’s definition of harm, the assessment of cumulative and cross-platform abuse, resourcing for the eSafety Commissioner, trauma-informed complaints standards and investment in prevention, including Respectful Relationships Education.
This submission makes the following recommendations:
- Make gender an explicit and central dimension of the Digital Duty of Care for adults and children, and require platforms to assess and mitigate gendered and intersectional harms.
- Explicitly recognise technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including coercive control, stalking, surveillance, sexual extortion, impersonation, doxxing, image-based abuse and misuse of generative AI.
- Require online services to assess cumulative, contextual and cross-platform harm.
- Adequately resource the eSafety Commissioner to scrutinise risk assessments, require remedial action, evaluate outcomes and enforce non-compliance.
- Establish mandatory, trauma-informed, accessible and culturally safe complaints and remediation standards.
- Invest in prevention approaches, including Respectful Relationships Education alongside platform regulation.
Download the full submission to explore the evidence and recommendations in detail.
Suggested citation
Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. (2026) Re: Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 [Submission no. 4]. ANROWS.