Daniel’s Law, which refers to the Community Protection and Public Child Sex Offender Register (Daniel’s Law) Bill 2025, was introduced into the Queensland Parliament on 27 August 2025.
The bill proposes to amend the Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Act 2004 and introduce a three-tiered public child sex offender register:
1. A publicly available website for reportable offenders who have failed to comply with their obligations and their whereabouts is unknown to police. The offenders full name, photograph and year of birth may be accessible by members of the public.
The bill requires only information considered necessary to keep the community informed to be published and details to be removed as soon as practicable once the offender is located by police.
2. A locality search application that gives residents the ability to view photographs of reportable offenders living in their local area.
Tier 2 is limited to reportable offenders who pose the greatest risk of reoffending against children. These are reportable offenders who:
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- are repeat offenders;
- have reporting obligations imposed for the remainder of the offender’s life;
- are subject to a supervision order under the Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003; or
- the Police Commissioner deems to be a serious risk offender
3. A parent and guardian application that allows parents, carers and guardians to confirm whether a particular person who has had, or will have, unsupervised contact with their child, is a reportable offender.
Its purpose is to increase the protection of children by giving parents, carers or guardians access to information that will allow them to act at an individual level to keep children safe.
However, the bill recognises that public release of information must be undertaken in a measured way. Safeguards proposed by the bill include:
- In line with existing restrictions, not enabling the publication or disclosure of information about an offender:
- who is under the age of 18 years, or who was under the age of 18 years at the time they committed a child sexual offence and has not reoffended or engaged in particular conduct as an adult;
- who is a participant in a witness protection program; or
- where a court has prohibited identification of the offender or the disclosure or publication of personal information about the offender.
- Creating new offences prohibiting misuse of information accessed or obtained using the public register:
- an offence carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years targeting conduct intending to, or inciting others to, intimidate or harass another person they believe or suspect is an identified offender;
- an offence carrying a maximum penalty of 3 years targeting conduct that is likely to, or likely to incite others to, intimidate or harass another person they believe or suspect is an identified offender; and
- an additional offence carrying a maximum penalty of 3 years for the unauthorised sharing of information obtained through the public register.
Will I know if my information has been shared?
It is unlikely you will be informed if your information is shared with an individual. This is because the Police Commissioner is not required to notify any person likely to be affected by such decisions or to offer them with the opportunity to provide input or make submissions.
Additionally, the bill allows only a limited right to appeal the Police Commissioner’s decision to publish information.
Any person concerned about publication of their identifying information should seek legal advice.