Alastair MacGibbon appointed Children's e-Safety Commissioner

Alastair MacGibbon.

Director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra, Alastair MacGibbon, has been announced as the federal government’s first Children's e-Safety Commissioner.

MacGibbon will begin in the new role on 1 July this year. He is currently general manager of security at Dimension Data Australia.

"I look forward to working with industry, child welfare organisations, law enforcement agencies and of course Australian children and parents as we work to protect children from the growing problem of cyberbullying," he said in a statement.

"Research has found that over a 12 month period, one in five Australian children aged eight to seventeen are exposed to cyberbullying, and the overwhelming message from the Australian public is that we must do more to protect Australian kids online – it will be the mission of this office to do just that.”

The Office of the Children’s e-Safety Commissioner will have the power to compel social networks to remove bullying material from their sites.

The commissioner will also administer funding of $7.5 million for online safety programmes in schools and $0.1 million to support Australian-based research and information campaigns on online safety.

The federal government has spent $2.4 million to establish the Office of the Children’s e-Safety Commissioner.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia