Brits must prove their age on adult sites by July, says watchdog
- Reference: 1737032572
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/16/ofcom_age_verification/
- Source link:
Ofcom expects age-checking processes on applicable services to be in place by July 2025. This includes verifying through open banking details, credit card checks, mobile network operator age checks, or facial age estimation.
The technical specifics of how the age verification is to work were not detailed by Ofcom, only that it needs to be "highly effective."
[1]
The regulator said: "It is for the service provider to determine which age assurance method(s) to use in order to implement an age assurance process that is appropriate to meet its duties under the Act."
[2]
[3]
Simply implementing one of the examples did not guarantee the service was compliant, added the watchdog. Instead, the content provider must demonstrate that the "process as a whole is highly effective."
As well as requiring "highly effective age assurance" in services that allow pornography, Ofcom expects all user-to-user and search services in scope of the UK's Online Safety Act to carry out a children's access assessment – to check if their service is likely to be accessed by children – with a deadline of April 16. Measures are also planned to protect children on social media, and these might include age checks too.
[4]
Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's chief executive, noted that, historically, there had been little to prevent children from viewing the services of providers that allow pornographic "and other harmful material." Dawes added: "Today, this starts to change."
"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. Services which host their own pornography must start to introduce age checks immediately, while other user-to-user services – including social media – which allow pornography and certain other types of content harmful to children will have to follow suit by July at the latest."
Lina Ghazal, Head of Regulatory and Public Affairs at Verifymy, called Ofcom's announcement "a pivotal moment in the fight to make the internet a safer place, particularly for children."
[5]
Ghazal continued: "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."
[6]Verifymy describes itself as a "technology provider with a vision to provide solutions that safeguard children and society online."
[7]Pornhub pulls out of Florida, VPN demand 'surges 1150%'
[8]US standards agency reports back on just how good age verification software is
[9]It's ba-ack... UK watchdog publishes age verification proposals
[10]Children should have separate sections in social media sites, says UK coroner
There is a good chance of Ofcom's goals being thwarted. Age verification was introduced in Florida as a way of preventing children from watching smut online. Rather than verify the age of visitors in a way that would satisfy lawmakers, Pornhub withdrew from the US state, reportedly resulting in a [11]four-digit percentage surge in VPN demand .
Australia took things a step further in 2024 with plans for [12]a ban on access to social media for people under the age of 16.
There are also questions over civic rights and whether a well-intentioned move like Ofcom's might be a step toward the state demanding [13]more monitoring powers to ensure users are kept "safe" online.
And of course, this isn't the UK's [14]first [15]go-around on [16]this particular [17]rodeo .
Speaking about the 2025 moves, Silkie Carlo, director of privacy campaigner Big Brother Watch, said: "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.
"There is a broad spectrum of age-checking methods, including dangerously intrusive methods like biometric face scans and even ID cards and passports for internet access. We must avoid anything like a digital ID system for the internet that would both eradicate privacy online and fail to keep children safe.
"Many technological age assurance methods can be easily circumvented and shouldn't be seen as a silver bullet solution, whilst parental controls, user controls and age ratings are other recognized, reliable methods to protect children from inappropriate content online."
Robin Tombs, CEO at Yoti - a business providing a trusted identity platform - welcomed the guidance and examples, and reckoned the direction of travel is clear.
However, Tombs called for more clarity from the regulator and said: "By not listing a definitive list of methods, which can be updated periodically, it does make it difficult for platforms to know if an alternative method they were considering might be suitable.
"Some of the methods that Ofcom has listed as highly effective must include the appropriate elements, such as liveness detection, otherwise they can be easily spoofed by children.
"There is too much that can be left open to interpretation in the guidance, which prevents parents and the public from having confidence that all regulated companies will complete effective checks." ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
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[6] https://verifymy.io/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/05/pornhub_vpn_demand_surge/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/03/us_standards_agency_publishes_a/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/05/uk_age_verifcation_proposals/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/18/social_media_separate/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/05/pornhub_vpn_demand_surge/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/11/australia_social_media_ban/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/13/smut_meta_opinion/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/age_verification_pornblocking_plans_shelved/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2019/06/20/bureaucratic_error_leads_to_p0rn_block_delay/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2008/01/25/online_retail_age_bill/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/17/lords_wants_more_details_on_p0rn_check_plans/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Bonkers
No but it will be a better incentive to having ID cards than just love of TBlair
+ more malware
Hijacked sites, malware and spam will be the alternative. This will cause more harm than benefit - similar to illegal drugs.
Government sites across the US are awash in hardcore porn: https://theintercept.com/2025/01/14/government-websites-porn-spam-hack/
Age verification
My ISP already knows how old I am, and so allows me to access "adult" sites. Why should anyone else need to do age verification on me?
Re: Age verification
That's probably the most important point. If someone pays for the Internet access, they should be in control of it and they should have responsibility to secure it. If I want to stop my kids looking at something, it's up to me to stop them. Not Kier Starmer, not whoever these other muppets are, me. I'm their parent, the responsibility is on me.
If I don't know how to protect them, it's my responsibility to find out, not to have everyone else locked out.
Online Safety is not improved by teaching people from an early age to stick their credit card details into sites as readily as they click 'accept all cookies'. Children are not protected by stopping them being able to have conversations with their parents- and adding barriers like this is exactly what this will achieve.
The person with the contract with the ISP should be the one whose age is checked, and who then bears responsibility for what's done by any others they allow to use their connection.
Re: Age verification
The fact that I _have_ an ISP is ipso facto proof that I am old enough to manage a contract. I am therefore of an age to view anything I bloody well want (unless specifically forbidden by law). End of story.
Adam Foxton's point about the responsibility for others using his connection is entirely correct.
Unfortunately, that doesn't extend to the mobile phones that so many have glued to the end of their arms from a very early age. I don't know how to fix that.
Re: Age verification
"I don't know how to fix that."
Glue remover.
Re: Age verification
Children can't have a SIM (with data) contract either, so it's STILL the responsibility of the person providing them that access.
Re: Age verification
Last time I bought a PAYG SIM for a burner phone, the only thing they asked me for was the £10 cost to buy it.
Re: Age verification
How much data allowance was there on that deal, and how many minutes of full-screen grumble will that download?
Re: Age verification
Contract no, PAYG yes. And for the latter, no-one asks you for your age either when you walk into a corner shop to buy one.
The UK is one of the few countries where no ID checks are done whatsoever on PAYG SIMs.
Re: Age verification
Why are you blaming His Beigeness? It was that other clown show that passed the law.
Re: Age verification
That assumes that the only person using that ISP connection is the contract owner.
Re: Age verification
No, it does not. It assumes that the contract owner is indeed the owner and in control of the connection and can decide who uses it.
Re: Age verification
So make it a "neglectful parenting" offence to allow your kids full access - ISPs should, if they don't already, ask if there are under-18s present at the home, and recommend parental control filters, MAC-whitelisting etc. If you willfully ignore that and allow your kids to access porn sites, then it should be Your fault.
Re: Age verification
This.
Re: Age verification
It knows how old you are. It doesn't know how old the person using your internet connection is. Children often have access to their parents' internet connection.
Re: Age verification
So it's the responsibility of their parents to monitor their use. Not the responsibility of the ISP, nor the website, and certainly not the government.
Here we go again...
These people just don't learn, do they?
You can't legislate this problem .
Let's imagine that some other state - let's say China - legislates that all websites hosted in the UK prevent Chinese citizens from accessing news that's not in accordance with the values of China. We would, of course, say "No." and that would be the end of it. China would be left to enforce any rules it wanted to apply at the ISP end inside the boundaries of their own country. Like, you know, they actually do.
So now lets imagine what happens when the British government tells a website based in some other jurisdiction to censor content - never mind what content it is or if you agree that it should be censored. What do we think will happen? They'll say "No." and we'll be left in exactly the same situation where either we block it at the ISP level in this country - at which point everyone simply VPN's around it - or put this utterly stupid idea down for another decade... you know, like we did last time when it became totally apparent within about a week that it wasn't going to work.
The only thing this might achieve is to convince porn sites to relocate their operations outside of the UK, which I guess one might make a moral argument for if one gives a shit about porn, which I don't think the vast majority of people actually do these days, but from an economic standpoint is hardly a win at a time when we're supposed to be all about growth.
Re: all about growth
snigger
Re: Here we go again...
It reminds me of the Elton John 'scandal' where the press in England and Wales could not mention names but in Scotland it was fine. The 'super injunction' only covered England and Wales and not everywhere else on the planet.
In the US certain cities have soda taxes so everyone just goes outside the affected area to buy cheap soda.
Do people not learn from King Canute the Great?
Re: Here we go again...
What a lot of people don't know is that Canute (or Cnut) was actually trying to show his courtiers that he wasn't all powerful.
So many people believe that he thought he was all powerful, and that he thought that this gave him to power to stop the tides.
---------> I still think he looks like Mark Labbett!
Re: Here we go again...
Also, many people don’t know that he was dyslexic and when he gave his name to the monks to record, he misspelled slightly.
Re: Here we go again...
The problem is that celebs and politicians really do think they are all powerful.
Whacko
It's Jimmy Edwards.
As to your main point, yes, but although he might have taught his court a lesson the knowledge died with them, a millennium ago.
Re: Here we go again...
@theOtherJT
Quote: "...some other state - let's say China - legislates that all websites hosted in the UK prevent Chinese citizens..."
Define "Chinese citizens"! Maybe "Chinese citizens" using a VPN so they appear to be surfing in, say, Bulgaria!!
How is that going to work?
Or an irresponsible parent surfing porn.....leaves the session open....and a twelve year old child just picks up where "Dad" left off?
Dream on....about "age verification"....or "citizenship verification".....or indeed any other sort of "verification"!!!
Where Is Ron White When You Need Him?
@theOtherJT
...."No Cure For Stupid!".....available on YouTube.....no age or citizenship verification needed!!!!!
Re: Where Is Ron White When You Need Him?
Where is Ron Jeremy when you need him?
Re: Where Is Ron White When You Need Him?
Where is Ron Jeremy when you need him?
Given that he's got severe dementia, he's probably asking himself the same question.
Re: Here we go again...
It's also likely that the more responsible, and tame, porn sites will be the ones which heed this, and so become less available to minors.
The more extreme sites will ignore the rules, or just pay lip service to them, and so will still be available. That's going to have exactly the opposite effect to the desired one, the kids will only be able to see the worst sort of content.
Impact on self-hosting and private services?
To what extent would these expectations apply to self-hosted services, like email and XMPP servers, Nextcloud etc. where, in theory, a user might share/send/download something inappropriate? Does this mean that some key reasons for self-hosting (privacy, security, and freedom from third-party content scanning etc.) are thrown under a bus? I.e. to comply with this, and other online 'safety' requirements, is there an expectation that everyone has to engage in age verification and/or content scanning or else give up on independence and allow all their services and data to be assimilated by some mega-corporation? Asking for a friend.
Re: Impact on self-hosting and private services?
Don't give them ideas. Is your server open to the public? If not then you're probably fine.
Re: Impact on self-hosting and private services?
If you're a "user-to-user" service, with UK users, you have to assess your risk.
[1]https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/quick-guide-to-childrens-access-assessments/
Stage 1: Is it possible for children to access your service? (YES, unless you have strong age verification).
Satge 2: Are there significant numbers of children using, or could be attracted to use, your service? If so, perform a child access risk assessment. If not, you're OK.
[1] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/quick-guide-to-childrens-access-assessments/
Why don't we test if our politicians are "highly effective"...
And let their salaries be dependent on it...
Like anyone would give their true ID to a porn site that could then track all their "views" !
That's ripe for hackers and blackmailers.
Since when was the internet "made for kids" anyway? If they really want kids to not see naked titties, they need to control the kids access to the internet, not the adults.
I'm quite happy for them to know that my real identity is Keir Starmer!
If they really want kids to not see naked titties
Then they must ensure the kiddywinks are bottle fed. ;)
Rather than the rest of us.
Did they ever have the breast is best campaign in England? Hard to imagine so.
Re: If they really want kids to not see naked titties
I saw naked titties as a kid before the Internet existed, the adult ladies were just taking their clothes off on the beach in Wales to wear a swimsuit ... and us boys were were just doing the same and completely uninterested in naked people. Let's just ban sexual pornography images and videos everywhere - that would be a better world these days for kids and even adults too.
Shafted three ways...
So now in the UK:
If you want to go online and be treated like an adult you must hand over your credit card (don't worry it will be safe).
If you want to provide online services to your community, you must have legal advice and multi-million pound insurance cover.
If you share anything online, it may be taken and reproduced by any interested party with no respect to copyright whatsoever.
Yeah, it's going great, isn't it?
Re: Shafted three ways...
good points, but where's the link to the video you mention in your comment title?
Re: Shafted three ways...
I'm happy to provide the video in question, just enter your credit card details for age verification.
Bang goes social media
and youtube, insta, tiktok etc and many other things that can show "harmful" content
Gonna be fun watching them police all of that
Re: Bang goes social media
Not a great loss....
Re: Bang goes social media
Actually I'd have said that was a great gain!
Surely it's already in place at the comms provider
When mine brought in an "Adult Content" filter I had to make a request to have it turned off.
As usual, it's politicians "solving" non-problems to grab headlines because they don't know how to fix things that actually matter to people.
Re: Surely it's already in place at the comms provider
Mine does that, but it was already off when I checked, so I suppose it's an opt-in filter, which it should be
Re: Surely it's already in place at the comms provider
Most ISPs I've dealt with in the last few years you have to turn parental controls off, I've often found this is necessary to use the VPN for work. The most recent one I did this with was Three for mobile broadband and there a proof of ID was needed to allow the switch (what access to a credit card number actually proves is anyone's guess). I think for mobile phone providers it's a requirement for this to be in place, not sure about landline-based broadband, or maybe if your account predates that then the setting remains off.
The control isn't really granular enough as a result to be that useful for protecting children online for home broadband, only really in the case of a personal mobile device.
The end of pr0n in UK
Proving your age requires proving your identity. There is no other way. This is basically the end of pr0n in the UK. More importantly, it's the end of anonymity. In the end, however, the internet always finds a way. Sites which are best viewed with anonymity are going to have to move to a friendlier hosting country ... or even onto a darknet. There are more people going on darknets now for just that reason.
This is basically the end of pr0n in the UK.
No, it's the end of legal porn. People who really want it will find it, just like they did before the internet was even a thing. I'm sure you can spot the obvious problem with that...
Re: The end of pr0n in UK
Back in the day you used to go through a grubby curtain at the back of a book store for the more niche products.
I fully expect Amazon to introduce a grubby curtain Easter Egg to their site, one they can monetise, obviously...
Bonkers
This is a privacy fail and it won't keep underage off sites.