Dutton said it was clear that young teens were suffering from an increase in mental health and body image issues since the popularisation of Facebook,Instagram and TikTok.

“The question is,what do we do about it?” he said.

“The one option that you can take is just to do nothing and allow a lawless environment to prosper and allow these companies to continue to profit at the expense of Australian children and their future,or you can take the path that we’re proposing now.”

Albanese said children’s social media use was one of the biggest talking points among parents.

He accused Dutton of copying the Labor’s age verification policy,even though the opposition had been spruiking age assurance rules for months before Labor moved on the issue.

Questions remain about the technology that would be used to verify the age of users.

Meta’s announcement is underpinned by world-leading identity-verification software company Yoti,which has created a biometric facial age estimation system.

Dutton said on Thursday that the technology was improving. Albanese said while he agreed with the principle of blocking children,he cautioned that “you need to work out how you do it”.

Coalition communications spokesman David Coleman said the little information revealed about the government’s trial indicated it may resemble more of a research project into overseas developments on age verification than a practical trial.

“It doesn’t make sense to ‘trial’ age verification for social media without actually requiring social media companies to participate,” he said.

“The social media companies should be required to actually trial age verification at sign-up. We know they can do it,they just don’t want to.”

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