Duty Check

This is a Bill, not law. Last updated 14 November 2026. Latest status

Senate hearings: eSafety says it is not focused on small business websites

At the Senate hearings on the Digital Duty of Care Bill, the eSafety Commissioner said eSafety is not focused on small businesses with a web presence, and the Department described a short checkbox assessment for low-risk sites.

About: 9 and 10 November 2026. Published 14 November 2026. All updates

What happened at the hearings?

The Senate committee examining the Bill held public hearings in Canberra on 9 and 10 November 2026. COSBOA appeared on the first day. The eSafety Commissioner and the Department appeared on the second, and a senator asked both whether small business websites would be caught by the risk assessment requirement.

What did eSafety say about small business?

  • eSafety is not focused on small businesses or religious institutions that have a web presence. Its focus is high-risk, high-harm services where being online is the product itself.
  • Its early criteria for the lowest-risk services are no interaction between users, no user messaging, no interaction between adults and children, and no AI chatbot.
  • It has met small business groups and will consult small business again before settling the criteria.

What did the Department say?

The Department said the vast majority of websites would be low risk. It described their risk assessment as a simple checkbox process: a site answers questions about things such as adult content, chatbots and user-to-user interaction, and if every answer is no, the assessment is done.

What does this mean for a small business?

It is reassuring, and it is not a change to the law. The Bill still has no small business exemption and still applies the risk assessment requirement to every covered service. A regulator's priorities can change, and they are not an exemption.

The practical takeaway is which sites fall outside the lowest-risk group: those with reviews or forums, messaging between users, child users, or an AI chatbot. See which features raise risk.

How we know this

This account is drawn from the broadcast of the 10 November hearing. The official Hansard transcript was not yet published when we wrote it. We will check our account against Hansard and correct anything that differs.

Sources

Last updated 14 November 2026