Major pornography sites including Pornhub and Redtube will introduce “highly effective age checks” from the 25 July in the UK for the first time.
New Ofcom rules designed to keep children from seeing harmful content online come into force next month, with “robust” age checks a “cornerstone” of the regulations, according to the communications regulator Ofcom.
Under the Online Safety Act, age verification and age estimation must be “highly effective” at correctly determining whether a user is under 18 for sites hosting harmful content.
Highly effective age checks include credit card checks, open banking or facial age estimation.
According to new research by the regulator, 8% of eight to 14-year-olds in the UK visited a pornography site in one month with 19% of boys aged 13 and 14 visiting the sites. Around 11% of girls the same age visited pornography sites in one month.
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As part of the new rules, platforms must also ensure age verification measures don’t exclude adults from accessing legal content or compromise their privacy.
Ofcom said the other sites that have confirmed they will bring in the new age checks represent a broad range of pornography services accessed in the UK.
“Society has long protected youngsters from products that aren’t suitable for them, from alcohol to smoking or gambling. But for too long children have been only a click away from harmful pornography online,” said Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s group director of online safety.
“Now, change is happening. These age checks will bring pornography into line with how we treat adult services in the real world, without compromising access and privacy for over-18s.”
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In France, pornography operators including Pornhub recently “went dark” in protest against new age verification rules similar to those required in the UK.
“I can confirm that Aylo has made the difficult decision to suspend access to its user-uploaded platforms in France. We will be using our platforms to directly address the French public tomorrow,” a spokesperson for Pornhub said on 3 June.
“If Aylo would rather leave France than apply our laws, they are free to do so,” Clara Chappaz, France’s junior minister for artificial intelligence and digital technology, wrote in a post on social media platform X.
Sky News has contacted Pornhub and Redtube for comment.
