The Latest Breaking News from Anika Wells

Calls are growing across the political spectrum for the boss of Optus to stand down after his network oversaw a brutal network outage linked to multiple deaths.

As governments condemn Optus for failing the Australian people, consumers worry the telco has ‘not learned from its previous experience’

Communications Minister Anika Wells says the telco has “failed the Australian people”.

Australia has foreshadowed changes to the nation’s telecommunications industry after a major company’s failure to connect hundreds of emergency calls was linked to four deaths

Asked today whether Optus’s chief executive should be considering his future after the “completely unacceptable” Triple Zero outage, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC “I would be surprised if that wasn’t occurring.” Communications Minister Anika Wells has also vowed “Optus will be held to account”.

The head of Optus has blamed a failure of "established processes" to address a triple-zero outage connected to three deaths, as calls for penalties mount.

Emergency calls were offline for nearly 14 hours, during which four people died – including an eight-week-old baby

Authorities say that social media platforms should not require age verification for all users when a ban on children under 16 having accounts goes into effect in December in Australia

Social media companies will have to detect and eject under-16s from their platforms, but this does not mean all users will have their ages checked.

Tech platforms to be responsible for preventing access to ‘abhorrent technologies’ under reforms announced by Canberra.

Australia said Tuesday it will oblige tech giants to prevent online tools being used to create AI-generated nude images or stalk people without detection.