Techtonic IT Files 10-Point Submission on Australia's Digital Duty of Care Bill 2026
West End, Australia - September 29, 2026 / Techtonic IT /
Brisbane-based Techtonic IT has lodged a formal policy submission to the Australian Government regarding the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, presenting a 10-point blueprint that addresses risk-based compliance, artificial intelligence safeguards, age assurance mechanisms, and supply chain shared-responsibility frameworks. The submission draws on the company's operational experience across sectors including youth care, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), education, and healthcare.
A Submission Grounded in Sector Experience
The Digital Duty of Care Bill 2026 proposes to extend online safety obligations across a broader range of digital services and their participants. Techtonic IT's submission, filed through the formal government consultation process, argues that effective implementation requires clarity on responsibility allocation - particularly for managed service providers and the organisations they support.
The company's work across regulated care and education environments has exposed the practical complexity of digital safety obligations where multiple parties - platforms, providers, and end organisations - each hold a piece of the accountability chain. The submission contends that without defined shared-responsibility standards across that chain, compliance will remain fragmented and preventative objectives will go unmet.
"Digital safety doesn't stop at the platform," said Daniel Bolland, of Techtonic IT. "If we want a preventative model to work, everyone involved needs to clearly understand what they are responsible for."
10 Recommendations Spanning Risk, AI, and Supply Chain Obligations
The 10-point framework submitted by Techtonic IT spans a range of technical and regulatory dimensions. Key recommendations address the adoption of a risk-based duty of care model that scales obligations to the nature and scale of a service, rather than applying uniform requirements regardless of organisational capacity. The submission also calls for supply chain shared-responsibility provisions that formally recognise the role of third-party technology providers in delivering safe digital environments.
Additional recommendations cover AI safeguard requirements, including transparency and human oversight obligations for systems that interact with vulnerable users, as well as age assurance standards that are technically feasible and proportionate to the risks presented by a given platform or service. The submission further calls for demonstrable evidence standards - specifying that duty of care compliance should be assessed against documented practices and outcomes, not attestations alone.
Techtonic IT's Managed IT Services portfolio includes support for organisations operating under existing regulatory frameworks, giving the company direct exposure to the compliance challenges that the Bill is designed to address. The submission notes that provisions applied without proportionality considerations risk placing disproportionate burdens on smaller organisations, potentially displacing investment from front-line safety measures to administrative compliance activities.
SME Protections and Proportionate Compliance
A distinct strand of the submission focuses on protections for small and medium enterprises operating within digital supply chains. Techtonic IT's recommendations call for tiered compliance pathways that reflect the resource constraints of smaller providers while maintaining meaningful accountability. The company argues that proportionality is not a weakening of the Bill's intent - rather, it is a condition for broad and genuine adoption.
The submission references the practical realities of delivering Cyber Security Solutions to organisations in healthcare and disability services, where digital risk intersects directly with client welfare. In those environments, the company notes, duty of care is already a lived operational concern - and translating that into formal legal obligation requires statutory language that practitioners can interpret and act on without specialist legal intermediaries.
Techtonic IT also highlighted the role of Managed Cloud infrastructure decisions in shaping safety outcomes, recommending that cloud service selection and configuration responsibilities be included within any supply chain accountability provisions the Bill ultimately adopts.
The Australian Government's consultation on the Digital Duty of Care Bill 2026 remains open to submissions from industry stakeholders. Techtonic IT's 10-point submission is among those filed by managed service providers seeking to ensure that the Bill's implementation framework reflects how digital services are actually delivered and supported across Australia's regulated sectors.
About Techtonic IT
Techtonic IT is a Brisbane, Queensland-based provider of managed IT services, cyber security, and cloud solutions. The company serves organisations across healthcare, education, NDIS, and related sectors, delivering technology support aligned with the operational and compliance requirements of regulated environments.
Learn more at Techtonic IT
Contact Information:
Techtonic IT
Level 1, 377 Montague Road
West End, QLD 4101
Australia
Dan Bolland
+61 7 3881 9600
https://techtonicit.com.au
