Online Safety Policy

This policy explains what we do about online content and conduct that is harmful or unlawful, what we expect from you when you use a Service, and where to go for help. It forms part of Section D of this Agreement and applies to every Service we supply, to Consumer Customers and Business Customers alike.

It sets out how we meet our obligations under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) and the industry codes and standards registered under it, and how those obligations fit with the rest of this Agreement.

We are a carriage service provider. We resell nbn broadband and mobile Services carried over networks owned and operated by our Suppliers — see the Our network and our Suppliers section of Section C. We do not host content, and we do not operate a social media service, a messaging platform, an app distribution service or a search engine. We do not monitor, classify or filter what our customers do online as a matter of course, and we do not read the content of your communications.

Our role under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) is mainly to:

(a) act on notices, requests and directions given to us by the eSafety Commissioner; (b) give you a way to report harmful content and conduct, and deal with what we receive; (c) make online safety information available to you and point you to the right help; and (d) keep records and cooperate with the eSafety Commissioner and other authorities.

Where an obligation under the Act falls on a platform, a hosting provider or an app store rather than on us, we will say so plainly and point you to the right place to raise it. We will not leave you without an answer just because the problem is not ours to fix.

You must not use a Service, and you must not permit anyone else to use a Service, to engage in conduct or to access, store, send, post, share or make available material that is unlawful or that the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) makes actionable. That includes:

(a) cyber-abuse material targeted at an Australian adult — material that an ordinary reasonable person would conclude is intended to cause serious harm, and that is menacing, harassing or offensive; (b) cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child; (c) an intimate image of a person shared, or threatened to be shared, without their consent (image-based abuse); (d) child sexual exploitation material, pro-terror material and other class 1 material; (e) abhorrent violent material, including material that streams or records a terrorist act, murder, attempted murder, torture, rape or kidnapping; and (f) any other material or conduct that is unlawful, including material that is or would be refused classification under the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Cth).

You must also not use a Service to menace, harass, stalk, defraud or deceive another person, or to make a life-threatening or unwelcome communication. What is and is not acceptable use is set out in full in our Acceptable Use Policy, and those obligations apply in addition to this policy.

You are responsible for what happens on your Service, including use by members of your household, your employees, your guests, and anyone else you allow to use your connection or your Equipment. If you are a Business Customer, you are responsible for making your own users aware of these obligations and for having your own acceptable use arrangements with them.

The eSafety Commissioner can give a notice or a request under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth). Depending on the material and on the recipient's role, that can include:

(a) a removal notice, requiring material to be taken down; (b) a link deletion notice, requiring a search engine service to stop providing links to material; (c) an app removal notice, requiring an app distribution service to stop enabling an app to be downloaded in Australia; (d) a remedial direction or a service provider notification requiring particular action; and (e) a blocking request or a blocking notice, requiring an internet service provider such as us to take reasonable steps to prevent our customers accessing material.

Where a notice, request or direction applies to us, we must comply with it, and we will. Complying can mean that a website, a network address, an app or a service becomes unavailable through your Service, temporarily or permanently.

Where we act on a notice, request or direction from the eSafety Commissioner, under an applicable industry code or standard, or under a direction from another agency acting with lawful authority:

(a) that action is not a failure by us to supply the Service, is not a breach of this Agreement by us, and does not by itself entitle you to a refund, a credit or compensation; (b) we will limit what we do to what the notice, request or direction actually requires, and we will restore access as soon as we are permitted to do so; and (c) nothing in this clause limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, or your right to complain to us and then to the TIO about the way we have acted.

If something has become unavailable through your Service and you think we have got it wrong, tell us — see the Reporting harmful content or conduct to us clause. We cannot lift a block that the law requires us to apply, but we can check that we have applied it correctly and only as far as required, and we can tell you how to raise the underlying decision with the eSafety Commissioner.

The eSafety Commissioner can request or require internet service providers to block access to material that promotes, incites, instructs in or depicts terrorist acts or abhorrent violent conduct. This power matters most during an online crisis event — for example where footage of an attack is being live-streamed or is spreading rapidly.

We participate in the industry arrangements for responding to events of this kind. When we receive a blocking request or notice we will act on it promptly, at the level our Suppliers' networks allow us to act, and we will keep the block in place for as long as the request or notice requires.

Blocking at network level is a blunt instrument. It can occasionally make other material hosted at the same address unavailable at the same time. We will keep that over-reach to the minimum we reasonably can, we will not use a crisis block to restrict anything the request does not cover, and we will remove a block promptly once it is no longer required.

Where we are permitted to do so, we will make information available about blocks that affect our customers, and we will tell you what we can if you ask us why something is unavailable.

Industry codes and standards registered under Part 9 of the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) set out what each part of the online industry must do about:

(a) class 1 material — the most seriously harmful material, including child sexual exploitation material and pro-terror material; and (b) class 2 material — material that is lawful for adults but not appropriate for children, including pornography and high-impact violence.

As an internet carriage service provider, our obligations under those codes and standards are principally to:

(a) act on notices, requests and directions from the eSafety Commissioner; (b) make information available to our customers about online safety, and about the tools available for managing what children can access; (c) have a clear way for customers and other people to report harmful material and conduct to us, and to deal with what is reported; (d) train and equip our staff to handle reports appropriately; and (e) keep records of the action we take, and report to the eSafety Commissioner when required.

We also have regard to the Basic Online Safety Expectations to the extent they apply to a service we supply. Because these codes and standards are made, remade and amended over time, we refer to them in this policy as the applicable online safety codes and standards rather than by name. We comply with those that apply to us as they are in force from time to time.

If you come across harmful content or conduct connected with a Service we supply — your Service or someone else's — you can report it to us. You do not need to be a Lightning IP customer to make a report.

Report to us on 1300 994 884 or through the contact channels at lightningip.com.au. Tell us as much as you can: what the material or conduct is; where you saw it (a link, a network address, a phone number, an account name); when it happened; who is affected; and how we can contact you. Keep a copy or a screenshot if it is safe and lawful for you to do so — but do not put yourself at risk, and do not feel you have to gather evidence before you report.

When we receive a report we will:

(a) acknowledge it, and — if you are a customer and you want it handled that way — treat it as a complaint under our Complaints Handling Policy; (b) work out whether it involves a Service we supply, and what we are actually able to do about it; (c) act on the parts within our control — which can include investigating the account being used, blocking a number or an address, preserving the records we hold, and taking action on the account under the If your Service is used for prohibited material clause; (d) refer the matter to the eSafety Commissioner, the police or another agency where that is the right path, and tell you that we have done so; and (e) tell you the outcome, or tell you clearly who can help, where we cannot act ourselves.

If a person is in immediate danger, call 000 first, then tell us. If a report concerns child sexual exploitation material, we will refer it to the Australian Federal Police or the eSafety Commissioner without delay.

We handle reports sensitively. We will not tell the person you have reported who made the report, unless the law requires us to. We may not be able to tell you everything about the outcome, because Part 13 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) and our Privacy Policy limit what we can say about another person's Service.

The eSafety Commissioner, not Lightning IP, decides whether online material must be removed or blocked under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth). If a platform or a website will not take harmful material down, the eSafety Commissioner can compel it in ways that we cannot. We have no power to remove content from a service we do not operate.

You can make a report or a complaint directly to the eSafety Commissioner at esafety.gov.au. The schemes cover:

(a) cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child; (b) adult cyber-abuse; (c) image-based abuse — an intimate image shared, or threatened to be shared, without consent; and (d) illegal and restricted online content, including class 1 and class 2 material.

As a general rule you should report the material to the platform or service where it appears first, and then to the eSafety Commissioner if it is not dealt with. But you can go to the eSafety Commissioner at any time, and you should go straight there if the material is serious or if you are not getting anywhere.

We will help you find the right reporting path if you are not sure — call us on 1300 994 884. We cannot make a report on your behalf, we cannot influence the outcome, and we will not be told the outcome of another person's report.

If you receive a communication over a Service we supply that threatens your life or safety, or that is unwelcome — for example harassing, menacing, offensive, silent or repeated calls or messages — we handle it under the Threatening, harassing and life-threatening communications clause of Section C, which reflects our obligations under the industry code on handling of life-threatening and unwelcome communications (C525:2023).

In short:

(a) a life-threatening communication is urgent. Call 000 immediately if there is a threat to someone's life or safety. Tell us as soon as you can and we will treat it as a priority, including by giving relevant information to the police or another emergency service organisation, and by preserving the records we hold; (b) for an unwelcome communication, we will explain your options — which can include screening or barring, changing your number, and how to make a report to the police — and we will act on a lawful police request for information about the communication; and (c) we may be able to give information about the origin of a communication to the police, but generally not to you. That restriction comes from Part 13 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), not from a choice we have made.

We do not charge you for our help with a life-threatening or unwelcome communication, and where a change of number is the right answer we will not treat it as a chargeable request.

If online abuse is happening alongside the calls or messages — for example on a social media service — the eSafety Commissioner's schemes described in the Reporting to the eSafety Commissioner clause are the right route for that part of it, and we will point you there.

We want to be straight with you about what we do and do not provide.

We do not provide a network-level content filter, a parental control service, or a family safety product with our Services. As a reseller we do not have the ability to filter or classify what an individual customer accesses, and we do not monitor your browsing. Nothing in this policy or this Agreement means that we screen content for you, or that a Service is safe for a child to use unsupervised.

There is a lot you can do at your end, and it works well:

(a) most modems, routers and mobile devices include parental controls, content filtering, app limits and screen-time settings — check the settings menu or the manual for your Equipment or device; (b) operating systems and app stores offer family accounts, age ratings and purchase controls; (c) individual services — search engines, video platforms, social media, games and messaging apps — have their own safety, privacy and reporting settings, and these are usually the most effective place to act; and (d) third-party filtering and monitoring software is available if you want more control than a device or a service gives you.

The eSafety Commissioner publishes free, practical, Australian guidance — including device-by-device setup guides and advice for parents and carers, young people, adults, seniors, educators and workplaces — at esafety.gov.au. If someone needs to talk to a person, Kids Helpline is on 1800 55 1800 and Lifeline is on 13 11 14.

If you call us on 1300 994 884 and ask for help with online safety, we will point you to the right resource and help you understand your options. We will not tell you we can do something we cannot.

We keep records of:

(a) each online safety notice, request or direction we receive, what we did about it, and when; (b) each report of harmful content or conduct made to us, how we assessed it, and how it was resolved; and (c) the action we take on a customer account under this policy.

We keep these records for as long as the applicable online safety codes and standards, or any other law, requires, and otherwise for as long as we reasonably need them. We handle the Personal Information in them in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We cooperate with the eSafety Commissioner, the ACMA, the police, and other agencies acting with lawful authority. Where we are asked for information about a customer or a Service, we deal with the request under the Security, interception and lawful assistance section of Section C and our Privacy Policy: we check that the request is lawful and properly made, we disclose only what the request covers, and we keep a record of what we disclosed. We are frequently prohibited by law from telling you that a request has been made.

We report to the eSafety Commissioner on our online safety measures where we are required to, and we give the Commissioner the information the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth) entitles them to.

If we reasonably believe a Service we supply to you is being used for material or conduct prohibited under this policy or our Acceptable Use Policy, or if we are required to act by a notice, request or direction, we may:

(a) investigate, using the records we already hold about the Service; (b) ask you for an explanation, and give you a reasonable opportunity to stop the conduct and put things right; (c) block access to particular material, an address, a number or a service; (d) suspend or restrict the Service under the Suspending or restricting your Service section of Section A; and (e) cancel the Service and end this Agreement for a serious breach, or for a breach you do not fix after we ask you to.

We will take the least disruptive step that reasonably addresses the problem, we will act on evidence rather than an unsupported allegation, and we will normally warn you first and give you an opportunity to respond.

We may act immediately and without warning where the material is class 1 material, where there is a threat to a person's safety, where the law or a notice requires us to act immediately, or where warning you would prejudice an investigation. If we do act without warning, we will tell you what we have done and why as soon as we are permitted to.

If we take action on your account and you think we have got it wrong, complain to us under our Complaints Handling Policy and take it to the TIO if you are not satisfied with our response. Nothing in this policy limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.