Facebook’s parent company Meta, introduced new identification requirements in Australia today. The change today targets advertisers who promote financial products or services, where those ads target Australian consumers.
Meta’s stated objective with this move is to increase transparency and accountability around financial services advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
In reality, these new requirements are part of Meta’s support for the voluntary Australian Online Scams Code introduced in July 2024 by the Digital Industry Group Inc (DIGI).
These changes will come into effect from February 2025, just 3 months from now.
This week, Australia’s parliament passed a new law that will see Social Media services like Facebook and Instagram banned for those under the age of 16, in an effort to better protect them from bully and harassment. Regardless of how altruistic the objective, in order to verify someone’s age, you need to verify their identity and the bill was not prescriptive about how this will be done.
Each provider may solve this differently, but all will need to satisfy the Australian Government, or risk fines of up to A$50 Million.
The simplest form of verification is prompting the user to self-nominate, as many games and adult sites do, but this won’t be robust to satisfy officials. The next level is to require some level of identification, which could occur in one of two ways.
The first option would be to provide your ID to each platform, either a driver’s license, a proof of ID card etc, which requires implicit trust in each and every social media platform you participate on to store that securely and ensure their systems are never breached or compromised. In today’s age of Cybersecurity and privacy, that feels unlikely.
The second option would be for the social media networks to integrate using an OAuth-style hand-off to GovID. This means you’ll then place that same trust with the Government, but that is only one entity, rather than multiple. Millions of Australians already have MyGov/GovIDs as part of their interactions with Government agencies like Centerlink, ATO, eHealth etc, but many don’t and for them, signing up requires a full 100 point ID check, a combination of identity documentation like you driver’s license, passport, birth certificate, utility bill etc. This will be a bridge to far for many.
For those looking for anonymity on the internet, they’ll be most challenged by the concept of providing identification of who they are, be it for age verification or otherwise. It is important to remember that this will impact all Australian Social Media users by the end of 2025.
In the case of these new financial services ads, advertisers will be required to verify their beneficiary and payer information, including their Australian Financial Services Licence number. Once advertisers are verified they will need to select the verified payer and beneficiary information to include on their ad during the ad creation process which will automatically populate a “Paid for By” disclaimer after the ad is approved.
When users see a verified financial service ad, it will be labeled with a “Paid for By” disclaimer that will contain verified information about the beneficiary and payer, as well as the licence number or exemption. Verified financial services ads can also be viewed on the Meta Ad Library while the ad is active.
A financial services ad is identified based on the focus on promoting financial products and services. It will include ads about insurance products, mortgages, loans (long and short-term), investment products and opportunities, credit cards, and credit applications.
These changes will start to roll out to advertisers over the next month. Once rolled out in February 2025, advertisers will be required to complete the verification process before publishing qualifying ads to audiences in Australia.
“Meta recognises the devastating impact that finance and investment scams can have on Australian consumers. The introduction of financial advertiser verification is an important additional step towards protecting people in Australia from these sophisticated scammers, who try to impersonate legitimate financial institutions and advertisers.
Will Easton, Managing Director, Meta ANZ
This initiative forms part of our broader efforts as a founding signatory of the Australian Online Scams Code and adds to the multiple measures we have in place to combat scammers across our platforms.
This announcement follows a range of new anti-scams measures recently introduced by Meta to protect Australians.
Meta has announced that this will include the testing of facial recognition technology to stop celeb-bait scams (David Koch was famously caught up in one of these), as partnership with the Australian Financial Crimes Exchange (AFCX). This trial will see intelligence on scams shared via the Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE), and the introduction of verification for new advertisers in Australia.
Fraud Intelligence Reciprocal Exchange (FIRE) is a threat intelligence sharing programme for financial institutions, allowing banks to share intelligence with Meta directly, so Meta can use it to stop scammers and protect users.
