The current law places the onus of responsibility on pornography websites to ensure users are aged over 18. 

Failure to do so could result in financial penalties up to 10% of the company’s annual worldwide turnover up to £18 million. There may also be ‘business disruption measures’ such as restrictions through search engines, payment providers, or websites being outright blocked by internet service providers. 

“Pornography is too readily accessible to children online, and the new online safety laws are clear that must change,” said Ofcom CEO, Dame Melanie Dawes.

To meet these measures, the UK’s communications regulator suggested some methods that they consider to be highly effective. This can include asking a user to share banking or credit card information, photo identification matching, facial age estimation, mobile network operator checks. 

“We’re clear that weaker methods – such as allowing users to self-declare their age – won’t meet this standard,” continued Dawes. 

Ofcom plans to publish the final guidance in early 2025, after which the government will begin to enforce these measures. The move by Ofcom was made in the wake of the landmark establishment of the Online Safety Act (OSA), which became law in late October this year. 

The bill requires online organisations to swiftly remove or prevent the appearance of illegal content and requires that organisations promote transparency about the dangers of their platforms and provide an accessible way to report online issues. 

Recommended reading

• EU Considers Five Year Ban on Facial Recognition Tech
• UK Coalition Calls for “Immediate Stop” to Live Facial Recognition Surveillance
• Survey Reveals Women Put Off Tech by Age 15

These new age verification measures proposed by Ofcom in the online pornography realm, like other aspects of the OSA, are not without sluices of criticism. 

A report from the European Policy Information Center points out that age verification could “significantly increase the amount of sensitive data held by third parties and the frequency at which it is collected, exposing users to privacy breaches and abuse,” as well as “(direct) traffic towards less regulated and less secure platforms, thereby exacerbating risks.”

According to the report, this oversight is due to “Politicians’ tendency to promise the impossible without fully understanding the dynamics of what they are trying to regulate and without giving sufficient consideration to the side-effects of the proposed solutions.”