App developers, lobby group reject proposal to censor mobile apps

A Government proposal to make app developers subject to new classification laws that would allow users to complain about offensive apps has been rejected by lobby groups Electronic Frontiers Australia and app makers who say it would be too cumbersome.

Home Affairs minister Brendan O’Conner has revealed the Government will propose new laws to Parliament to fix loopholes that allow app developers to publish their apps and games on the App Store without regulatory approval – but only if the state attorneys-general agree.

MoGeneration chief executive Keith Ahern says the current system within the App Store is working well.

“The current system is probably more effective than anything the Government can introduce. So maybe the bigger question is, how does the App Store set this?

“I would say that system has been partly responsible for the success of the app store itself.”

Electronic Frontiers Australia has also rejected the proposal. Spokesman and chairman Colin Jacobs says it would be too confusing and the Government has not done enough to define how such a scheme would work.

“The system of classification we have is broken, and it’s not easily applied where everything is distributed globally and instantly – there is no point of sale, no importation and so on.”

Jacobs also points out there line between games and non-game apps is blurry, and the Classification Board would need to spell out exactly how it would define a “game” for its own purposes.

“It’s not clear they’re going to rate non-game apps at all. There needs to be discussions about formally defining where an app becomes a game – and from my point of view that means we need to rethink the scheme.”

“It’s not always going to be easy to say what is a game and what isn’t. The classification code doesn’t account for productivity apps – only games and entertainment content.”

O’Connor has told Fairfax the new laws will be “similar to the current classification arrangements for online content”.

“Under the change… the public will still be able to [have] protections such as submitting games to the Classification Board for consideration and lodging a complaint with the Australian Communications and Media Authority.”

The Government first became alerted to this issue in late 2009 after the head of classification board said at an inquiry that app developers are not legally obligated to submit their apps for review before they are published on the App Store.

Technically the Classification Board must review every app, but because of the sheer size of the app store – it contains hundreds of thousands of apps – it is simply impossible to do so because of a lack of resources.

O’Conner says instead of having the Classification Board review every single app, the Government will use the “online content” system which will allow users to complain about offensive material.

Only apps that receive complaints will be subject to review.

“Theoretically [at present] the board must classify every application,” he said. “But you would need an army, literally an army of classifiers to get through the applications because the growth has been exponential and for that reason we’re going… to a complaint-based approach.”

If Apple, or any other marketplace provider such as Google, continued to sell content that is refused classification then they would be breaking the law, O’Conner said.

“We would prosecute people who actually broke the law,” he said. “People cannot [be allowed to] break the law. People cannot at the moment sell, distribute or watch… games that have been refused classification.”

While O’Conner admits he believes there are “very, very few games” that would be banned, “if people are concerned, are so offended… then of course it can be refused like any other form of material”.