Program
The inaugural Trust & Safety Festival Sydney is a global gathering designed to bring together the full ecosystem of professionals working to create a safer, more inclusive, and more resilient digital world.
Wednesday October 7, 2026
Festival Welcome Reception
An invitation-only evening reception bringing together speakers, partners, sponsors and invited guests before the Festival formally begins. Designed as a relaxed opportunity to make introductions, reconnect with peers, and open the conversations that will carry through the two-day program.
Thursday October 8, 2026
Day 1
07:45 - Registration & Tea and Coffee
08:30 - Opening remarks
Opening remarks from moderator Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen. OAM.
08:40 - Video Message by Julie Inman Grant, Office of the eSafety Commissioner
Ten years at the coalface – emerging technology, adaptive regulation. A short video message from Australia's eSafety Commissioner, reflecting on the arc of technology development over the course of her decade-long tenure as the world's first dedicated online safety regulator.
08:45 - Welcome to Country by Michael West
Welcome to Country delivered by Uncle Michael West.
08:55 - Keynote by Lorraine Finlay, Australian Human Rights Commissioner
Building systems that centre humanity – rights and abuses in the age of AI takeoff.
Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, will map the ways in which new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, are falling short of human rights expectations – and how create systems that are centred on humanity.
09:30 - Keynote Panel: Defining the Trust & Safety Landscape
Hear some of the region's most thoughtful leaders in technology, age assurance, and safety by design reflect on what trust and safety as a discipline actually is, and what it should achieve.
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists:
• Madeline Shepherd (Microsoft)
• Michael McDonald (3 Steps Data)
• Jeff Wu (k-ID)
• Nina Bual (Cyberlite)
• Edward Wee (Singapore Infocomm Media Development Authority)
10:20 - Panel Discussion:
Not just ‘digital’ harm – how online risks and threats produce real human consequences
The distinction between what is online and offline, ‘real world’ and digital, are false binaries in today’s environment of embedded digital services. Listen to some of the most compelling voices in online safety discuss how the online and offline worlds have merged to produce a continuous harms landscape.
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists
• Sienna Parrott (Teach Us Consent)
• Colm Gannon (ICMEC Australia)
• Sophie Murray-Farrell (NSW Premier's Department)
• Francis Ng (Online Safety Commissioner, Singapore)
11:25 - Coffee/Tea Break
11:05 - Hon Dr Andrew Charlton MP, Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy
A special Festival address on technology, policy and Australia’s digital future.
11:45 Fireside chat with Hon Victor Dominello : In Bytes We Trust?
What's needed to win public confidence and consent for essential digital services – and how to deliver. How can we build systems that are trusted by those who rely most on them? In a world where it feels as if the fabric of shared reality is slipping, governments and authorities have never faced a more urgent challenge in providing digital services that win and maintain the confidence of users. The Hon Victor Dominello MP built a global reputation on doing just that, and he joins us to talk about what needed to bring people to the digital revolution.
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
12:30 - Lunch
1:30 pm Panel Discussion: Policy and regulation in practice – From principle to enforceability
Governments are moving increasingly quickly to name and control online harms through sweeping reforms that go well beyond social media services – often with strong public support. However, speed to legislate can create a range of unintended consequences, and raises questions about public consent. What is the best approach to create new public law about digital harm?
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists
• Kelly Tallon (Office of the eSafety Commissioner)
• Ben Au (Snap)
• Dr Jenny Duxbury (Digital Industry Group Inc. - DIGI)
• Jordan Benavidez (Match Group)
• Zoe Hawkins (Tech Policy Design Institute -TPDi)
•Tajesjwari Davi, Fiji Online Safety Commission
2:35 pm Panel Discussion: AI, Agency and Our Human Future
"Absolutely, let's dive into that!" Artificial intelligence, agency and our human future. Is your p-doom number climbing every day? Feeling like your cognitive machinery is grinding to a halt? Worried about what you'll do with your bag of zero days now that Fable 5 is on the hunt? Find your people in this panel of our smartest thinker and critics of AI and new technologies. We'll be sure to end on a positive note, promise.
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists
• Jon Rouse APM (AILECS and UNSW)
• Joel Kalmanowicz (Canva)
• Maryam Shoraka (Airtrunk)
• Shoshona Shields (Google)
3:40 pm Sponsor Session (Corrs) : The era of Scams Prevention
The Scams Prevention Framework and Beyond
With the advent of the Scams Prevention Framework (SPF), tech platforms, telcos and banks will be subject to new scams prevention obligations from March 2027. In anticipation of the release of finalised SPF rules and sector codes that will set out the detailed obligations on regulated entities to comply with the SPF, this session will cover scams in Australia, measures that the sector will need to adopt, how scams complaints will be dealt with and the key roles of regulators and industry in combatting scams. Speakers will also share perspectives from abroad, and overseas scams compensation and prevention models.
Moderator: Michael do Rozario (Corrs, Gold Sponsor)
Panellists:
• Kuan Chia (AFCA)
• Alex Meaney (NASC)
• Natalie Faulkner (FTI)
• Caroline Marshall (Corrs)
• Suanne Russell (Australian Financial Complaints Authority)
4:30 pm Panel Discussion
Around the Sun? Dispatches from the Splinternet on the trust and safety
Is the fragmentation of the internet a foregone conclusion? If so, what does that mean for trust and safety, and is there any realistic hope of creating global communities of practice? If we are arguing over the definitions of fundamental freedoms – of speech, of participation, of expression – can we ever agree to a shared ethical framework for combatting online harms?
• Paul Ash (Christchurch Call Foundation)
• Edward Wee (Infocomm Media Development Authority Singapore)
• Sean Lyons (NetSafe New Zealand)
• Tajesjwari Davi (Fiji Online Safety Commission)
• Jed Horner (TikTok)
3:20 pm Coffee/Tea Break
5:15 pm Wrap and closing remarks
Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
What have we covered? Key takeaways. Logistics for Day Two
Evening reception
(by invitation only)
Day 2 - Friday October 9, 2026
08:15 - Registration & Tea and Coffee
08:50 - Welcome and opening comments by Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
• Synthesis of Day One themes, forecasting of Day Two themes
• How does today work?
• The parallel tracks: an overview of each panel and workshop
09:00 - Opening Keynote by Catherine Fitzpatrick, CEO & Founder, Flequity Ventures
When the system becomes a weapon: Tech-facilitated abuse, coercive control, and fighting back one process at a time. What happens when an abuser seizes control of a partner's electricity plan, or their mobile phone account? Perpetrators of domestic violence often turn the online services relied upon by their victims against them. Everyday tools, such as banking transactions, are weaponised. Learn from one of Australia's foremost Safety by Design practitioners about how banking, utilities and telecommunications services are abused by offenders, and how companies can fight back.
09:30 - CyberCX (Platinum Sponsor) - From Regulation to Resilience
Making Trust and Safety Operational
From Regulation to Resilience : Making Trust and Safety Operational
10:15 - Coffee/Tea Break
10:30 - Breakout block I – Ibis Room – Panel
Beyond the Report Button: Youth Safety, AI Companions and the Limits of Platform Policy
Young people are increasingly turning to AI chatbots and companions as trusted confidantes, friends and even romantic partners. What are the consequences of this shift in social relations, and is it really as bad as we are being led to believe? If this is the future, what should companies be expected to do to limit the harms, and what is needed beyond platform policies?
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists:
• Nina Bual (Cyberlite)
• John Livingstone (UNICEF)
• Anju Dhanushkodi (UNICEF Youth Ambassador)
• Professor Amanda Third (Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University)
• Edward Wee (Singapore IMDA)
11:20 - Breakout block I – Ibis Room – Fireside Chat Singapore Online Safety Commissioner
• Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
• Francis Ng, Online Safety Commissioner
11:55 - Breakout block I – Ibis Room – Panel - Smart glasses and the Portable Panopticon
More than a decade after Google Glass, smart glasses have shifted from a niche concept to mainstream everyday tech. While hands-free cameras and integrated AI offer powerful benefits for accessibility, independence, and communication, they also fundamentally alter the dynamics of privacy and consent. As Trust & Safety professionals grapple with image-based sexual abuse and non-consensual imagery, smart glasses introduce a new vector for capturing and distributing content without the knowledge of those being recorded. Brought to you by the STISA Network, this panel explores the promises of this technology, as well and the risks and their potential solutions.
Moderator: Caroline Humer (STISA Network)
Panellists:
• Tajeshwari Devi (Fiji Online Safety Commission)
• Dr. Milica ‘Milly’ Stilinovic (University of Sydney)
• Sean Lyons (NetSafe)
• Rose MacDonald (Digital Safeguard Centre)
11:55 - Breakout block I – Parkview Room – eSafety Commissioner Workshop
Preparing for future harms: Safety by Design and digital foresight workshop
Keeping pace with shifts in the digital environment is becoming increasingly critical for organisations as evolving technologies create new vectors for harm that adversaries are quick to adopt and exploit. Foresight helps organisations anticipate and respond to emerging harms in a rapidly changing digital environment. This workshop explores how Safety by Design paired with digital foresight can strengthen organisation preparedness, resilience, and coordination. Through a scenario exercise, participants will apply these approaches and examine how emerging technologies and evolving user and adversarial behaviours can create new harm pathways, and how organisations can take practical action to prepare.
Facilitated by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner.
• Dan Child (Manager, Industry Insights and Enablement)
• Sage Emmerson (Assistant Manager)
• Tas Ahmed (Assistant Manager)
• Adelaide Carter (Policy Officer)
12:00 - Breakout block I – Parkview Room – Online Safety Certification
Collectively Setting the Standard: Credentialling the Online Safety profession
Facilitator: Martin Cocker (Founder, Online Safety Exchange)
Online safety is becoming a profession. On the front line, educators, helpline staff, caseworkers, investigators, community managers and NGO responders work to prevent and respond to online harm. They have collectively built up specialised knowledge about how risk and harm are generated and mitigated online. That knowledge has not yet been translated into standards that define a profession. That is the work for this workshop. Participants are asked to bring their knowledge, and we will collectively work to answer the question — "What should every person operating as an online safety practitioner know?" A standard we are all held to should be one we all had a hand in setting. The workshop will be run under the Chatham House Rule. Contributions will be captured live, written up as an open baseline document shared back to participants, and fed into the Online Safety Exchange's Online Safety Foundations and Practitioner courses (currently in pilot).
10:30 - Breakout block I – Cook Room – Panel
When Moderation Is Not Enough: Building Trusted Communities Online
When moderation is not enough: Building trusted communities online. Those who create and maintain online communities often need to play multiple roles at once: facilitator, traffic warden, moderator and police officer. How are the best communities constituted and run, and is it correct to say that they are managed, or cultivated?
Moderator: Toby Dagg
Panellists:
• Dr Venessa Paech (Australian Community Managers)
• Jess Wilson (Good Things Foundation)
• Ishtar Vij (Discord)
11:30- Breakout block I – Cook Room – Workshop
Behind the Chat: AI Companions, Young People and Trusted Adults (Cyberlite)
Facilitators: Michelle Yao and Nina Bual (Cyberlite)
AI companions aren't emerging, they're already here, part of the youth zeitgeist globally. Yet the safety frameworks governing them are still designed without young people themselves.
Cyberlite and Microsoft invite practitioners to experience a youth co-design methodology, refined across Cyberlite's programmes in 16 countries and applied here with students in India and Singapore. Participants work through the same exercises we facilitate with young people aged 12–18 to surface how they actually experience AI companionship: what draws them in, what feels unsafe, and what guardrails they want versus what adults assume they need.
We'll share findings from real co-design sessions with 131 students across nine schools, show how youth-informed insights are being taken up in the design of emotionally intelligent, boundaried AI, and compare results across India and Singapore to ask whether context changes the outcome.
Attendees leave with a replicable co-design toolkit adaptable to their own platforms, along with concrete examples of where youth perspectives challenged and improved adult-designed safety interventions.
It's built for child safety specialists, product managers, policy teams, and anyone building AI experiences young people will encounter. No co-design experience required, just a willingness to be surprised.
1:00 pm Lunch
2:00 pm Breakout block II – Ibis Room – Panel
People write the code: Safety by Design as Moral Leadership
Technologies are made by people, and the design choices they make about functions and features are an expression of specific values. Safety by Design is an idea whose time has well and truly come. For companies that embrace it as a core ethos, what does it say about a company's moral compass – and is there any realistic alternative?
Moderator: Dr Jenine Beekhuyzen OAM
Panellists:
• Colm Gannon (ICMEC Australia)
• Caroline Wall (CBA)
• Jordan Benavidez (Match Group)
• Björn Böhme (ReachOut)
2:00 pm Breakout block II – Parkview Room – Workshop
Building Trusted Communities Online: Community Management for Repairing Online Social Spaces
Facilitator: Dr Venessa Paech (Australian Community Managers)
3:00 pm Coffee/Tea Break
3:15 pm Closing Keynote: Michael Outram, former Commissioner of the Australian Border
Beyond the Platform: Engineering Trust Across Digital and Physical Systems
Harm crosses systems, agencies and jurisdictions faster than visibility does. Online and physical harm run on the same networks, and no one owns the seams between them. Trust is an emergent property of whole systems, digital and physical. It cannot be bolted on at the platform layer. Assurance, not throughput: what we measure decides what we get. Social licence is the real regulator and it has to be continuously re-earned, not assumed. Key takeaways Australians now rank AI-enabled attacks and disinformation among their top national security threats. Trust and safety is national security work. Safety by Design only holds if it becomes Assurance by Design: proven end to end, not asserted at the interface. Federated visibility, not central surveillance: prove once, use many times. Social licence is rarely lost in a scandal. It erodes in the silence between them and it is still there to be earned.
4:00 pm Closing remarks
Closing remarks by Festival Co-Founder and Co-Host Toby Dagg
4:10 - Closing reception
After event drinks sponsored by 3 Steps Data and Primary Purpose