Australia's eSafety Commissioner released its first compliance assessment under the Basic Online Safety Expectations framework, examining Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap and WhatsApp over the six months to December 2025. The report found significant detection gaps: only Microsoft uses proactive tools to detect child sexual exploitation during video calls; Google received zero reports relating to child sexual exploitation through Google Messages globally despite having in-app reporting; and Meta's language-analysis tools for detecting sexual extortion were restricted on Messenger and Instagram Direct where end-to-end encryption limited proactive detection, though the regulator noted Meta announced it would remove end-to-end encryption from Instagram private messages in May 2026.
Real-time monitoring of direct messages addresses precisely the detection gap the eSafety findings expose. Anti-sextortion and anti-grooming modules operating across encrypted and unencrypted messaging platforms—Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and others—identify coercive behaviour patterns before a threat escalates, flagging hostile contact for immediate intervention by parents, schools or law enforcement. Where regulatory compliance assessments reveal reactive reporting structures that yield no actionable intelligence, pattern-based detection at the point of contact intercepts harm as it occurs, providing the proactive layer the Australian regulator found missing across seven of the eight platforms assessed.
