Child Protection – Annual child safety statement of compliance

ASIC is committed to promoting and maintaining a culture that does not permit or tolerate child abuse and provides a safe environment for children.

ASIC is the integrated corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator. Our primary purpose is to administer the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (ASIC Act). We carry out most of our work under the Corporations Act.

The nature of ASIC’s work means there is limited interaction with children across the scope of its activities and functions. For example, ASIC may intermittently interact with children during occasional community outreach work and the education work of our consumer education team.

Given the nature of the interactions, ASIC has assessed the risk to child safety as Low. ASIC’s annual risk assessment takes into consideration how interactions with children may change as ASIC’s operating environment evolves. Situational assessments continue to shape and inform ASIC’s understanding of potential risk exposures.

ASIC conducts baseline security clearances of all prospective staff, including criminal history screening through the National Police Checking Service as part of pre-assessment security checks. Further, a Working with Children Certification is a requirement for prospective employees who will have contact with children and young people (e.g. certain consumer education employees).

ASIC has progressed in its implementation of the Child Safety Framework, and undertook the following program of work in 2022/23:

• Further updates to ASIC’s eLearn training for all staff to address the specific learning points within the framework
• Review of procurement processes to manage the potential for interactions with children should they arise
• Review of risk assessment templates for Child Safety risk mitigation and application of control measures
• Providing easy access to Child Safety Policy information
• Providing oversight of the governance of the Child Safety Policy through the compliance management framework.

In 2023/2024 ASIC will continue to mature the application of the Child Safety Framework requirements, implement control measures and review new activities for potential Child Safety risks.