"Today, this starts to change."
All porn sites must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques such as demanding photo ID or running credit card checks for UK users by July 2025.
Issued by regulator Ofcom, the guidance has been made under the Online Safety Act (OSA) and is intended to prevent children from easily accessing online pornography.
In the UK, the average age when a person first sees explicit material online is 13. However, many are exposed to it much earlier.
Ofcom boss 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.
“Today, this starts to change.”
This means user-to-user services like social media sites must enforce “highly effective checks” – which in some cases might mean “preventing children from accessing the entire site”.
However, some porn sites and privacy campaigners have said the move will be counterproductive, warning that bolstered age verification will only push people to “darker corners” of the internet.
According to Ofcom, approximately 14 million people in the UK watch online pornography.
But it is so readily available that campaign groups have raised concerns that children see it at a young age.
Dame Melanie said: “As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services.”
The rules also require services which publish their own pornographic content – including with generative AI tools – to begin introducing age checks immediately.
Age verification platform Yoti called such technology “essential” for creating safe spaces online.
Chief regulatory and policy officer Julie Dawson said:
“It is important that age assurance is enforced across pornographic sites of all sizes, creating a level playing field, and providing age-appropriate access for adults.”
But Pornhub’s parent company Aylo said this type of age verification was “ineffective, haphazard and dangerous”.
It said its website’s traffic dropped 80% in Louisiana after similar age verification controls came into force.
Aylo said: “These people did not stop looking for porn, they just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age.
“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”
Ofcom has published a list of technologies that may be used to verify ages, which includes:
- Open banking
- Photo ID matching
- Facial age estimation
- Mobile network operator age checks
- Credit card checks
- Digital identity services
- Email-based age estimation
The rules say “self-declaration of age” is no longer considered a “highly effective” method of checking ages – and therefore is unacceptable.
It has also stated that pornographic content should not be accessible to users before they have completed an age check.
Welcoming the news, Lina Ghazal, head of regulatory and public affairs at Verifymy, said:
“The regulator’s long-awaited guidance on age assurance means adult content providers now have the clarity they need to get their houses in order and put in place robust and reliable methods to keep explicit material well away from underage users.”
On the other hand, Big Brother Watch warned many age-checking methods could be bypassed.
Boss Silkie Carlo explained: “Children must be protected online, but many technological age-checking methods are ineffective and introduce additional risks to children and adults alike including security breaches, privacy intrusion, errors, digital exclusion and censorship.
“We must avoid anything like a digital ID system for the internet that would both eradicate privacy online and fail to keep children safe.”
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