Government releases draft Digital Duty of Care legislation, naming AI chatbots
The government released draft Digital Duty of Care legislation for targeted consultation on 9 September 2026. It would require digital services, including AI chatbots, apps and online games, to protect Australian users and especially under-18s from harmful design and content, document their measures, and give social media users a choice over algorithmic feeds ("My Feed, My Way"). eSafety would enforce it, with penalties up to $109.2 million. A bill is promised for 2026.
This draft duty falls on businesses that provide a digital service to the public: social media platforms first, and then apps, online games and AI chatbots that Australians, and especially under-18s, use directly.
If your AI use is internal, or your chatbot serves adult customers of a business, nothing in this draft reaches you.
If you run a public-facing chatbot or app that a minor could reach, the draft would require you to protect young users from addictive design and from listed categories of harmful content, and to keep a written record of the measures you take and evidence that they keep working. Start that record now: it is the same record a regulator asks for after something goes wrong, and it costs little to begin.
This is an exposure draft, not law. The government is consulting platforms, industry bodies and civil society and says it will introduce the bill to Parliament this year. Scope, and the size of business it catches, will settle in the bill.
Applies to: Digital service providers, including public-facing AI chatbots, apps and online games used by Australians
Related instrument: Digital Duty of Care (draft legislation)