Pornography sites will have to check visitors are adults, Ofcom says
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The online safety regulator has published new guidance as it prepares to start enforcing the Online Safety Act. People visiting websites that host pornography or other potentially harmful content will soon have to prove they are adults, Ofcom has said. The UK regulator will require that pornography sites and others must have “robust” age checks that ensure children are not able to access them.
Publishing the latest round of industry guidance ahead of beginning its enforcement of the Online Safety Act, the regulator said any sites hosting pornography must have age checks in place by July 2025. Ofcom’s guidance said services which allow pornography or other adult content will be required to introduce age assurance tools, for example photo ID matching, facial age estimation or credit card checks, to prove a user is not a child.
The regulator’s chief executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, said: “For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services. “Either they don’t ask or, when they do, the checks are minimal and easy to avoid. That means companies have effectively been treating all users as if they’re adults, leaving children potentially exposed to porn and other types of harmful content. Today, this starts to change.”.
Under the Online Safety Act, all social media and search services are required to carry out a children’s access assessment to determine if their site is likely to be accessed by children, with Ofcom saying platforms have until April 16 to complete this.
