Online safety & content laws in Fiji (2026)

Enacted May 2018 and operational from 2019, the Act creates the Online Safety Commission as an independent body corporate empowered to receive individual complaints of harmful electronic communication, investigate, and seek court orders against respondents and online content hosts. Maximum penalties are FJD 50,000 / 7 years imprisonment for individuals and FJD 100,000 for bodies corporate.

The OSC is Fiji's dedicated online safety regulator, operating since 2019. It collaborates with social media services on content takedowns, works with the police Cybercrime unit on enforcement, and in 2024 documented that 22% of Fijian women are frequent targets of image-based abuse. The Commission has publicly called for additional legal powers to remove harmful apps.

The Cybercrime Act 2021 came into force on 14 November 2022, replacing earlier computer-related offence provisions in the Crimes Act 2009. It covers computer-related fraud, identity theft, surveillance warrant powers requiring ISPs to collect and hand over traffic data in real time, and content-related offences.

The Fiji Law Reform Commission began a formal public review of the Online Safety Act 2018 in 2025, focusing on strengthening definitions, new categories of offences, statutory duty-of-care obligations on digital service providers to detect and remove harmful content, tougher penalties, broader coverage of mis/disinformation, and improved cross-border cooperation. No amending legislation has been enacted as of May 2026.

There are no age-verification requirements mandated under current Fijian law. The OSC has stated it is monitoring Australia's under-16 social-media access restrictions before deciding whether to propose similar measures in Fiji, and the FLRC review lists improved child-safety pathways as a priority.

Fiji signed the UN Convention Against Cybercrime (the first global UN instrument on the topic), strengthening its international cooperation framework. The restrictive Media Industry Development Act 2010, which also touched online content, was repealed by Parliament in April 2023 following a change of government, removing that layer of content control.