Ofcom starts a consultation on draft guidelines on how porn sites should lock out underage users, including having a bank or mobile network confirm a user's age
UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has laid out how porn sites could verify users' ages under the newly passed Online Safety Act.
The VergeJon Porter
Context & Ripple Effects
This consultation operationalizes the Online Safety Bill’s earlier requirement that porn sites verify users’ ages or face penalties. It moves the policy from a statutory obligation toward concrete methods, including confirmation through banks or mobile networks.
Pornography sites serving UK users must assess the draft guidance and prepare to implement an age-assurance route that Ofcom could regard as effective.
Banks, mobile networks, and specialist verification providers become potential intermediaries in access to adult content, with their confirmation systems positioned as compliance inputs.
Second-order effects
Sites will face a trade-off between stronger verification and added user friction; providers that can supply privacy-conscious, reliable age signals gain a clearer route into the compliance market.
A common regulator-backed standard can reduce room for weaker self-declaration approaches and gives Ofcom a basis for later enforcement against services that do not meet the bar.
If this approach spreads across child-safety rules, age assurance could become recurring digital-access infrastructure, while debates over intermediary power and user privacy remain central to its design.
The trend: Online-safety regulation is shifting from broad child-protection mandates toward auditable, third-party-mediated controls over access to age-restricted services.
Ofcom has no idea what they are talking about. Porn sites are notorious for their use of data. Most porn sites are just pirated sites, monetized with scam ads ... and now Ofcom wants to give them insanely private information merely “hoping” that they won't misuse it. [image]
It's important to protect children online, but @Ofcom proposed guidelines create serious risks to everyone's privacy and security. Age verification tech for porn risk sensitive personal data being “breached, collected, shared, or sold.” ORG in @guardian. https://www.theguardian.c…
There are potential issues with all of these, not the least of which are expense, but it's particularly notable that the UK is allowing credit cards as verification, which most of the US laws do not. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/...
We've proposed guidance on highly effective age checks porn sites should take to protect children under online safety laws. Children first see online porn at age 13 on average. Porn sites must take action to stop them accessing it. Read more ⬇️ https://www.ofcom.org.uk/... [image…
I sometimes wonder if Ofcom suggests these outrageous, unworkable ideas in the hope the government will take these difficult jobs off their desks. https://www.bbc.com/...
❓How can children be prevented from accessing online pornography? The head of @ofcom Dame Melanie Dawes @dawes_melanie talks to @KrupaPadhyBBC about her plans to make tech companies ban children from accessing online pornography. 🎧 Listen now on @BBCSounds⬇️
UK regulator Ofcom has just released its age-verification guidelines for adult sites: 1. AI-driven age-estimation 2. Digitized ID and facial recognition 3. Credit card / bank check https://techcrunch.com/... [image]
'@Ofcom's codes of practice for pornography providers are a welcome step forwards towards protecting children': @lynnanneperry in @thetimes. Effective age verification and estimation technologies are essential to ensure that children are protected online. https://www.thetimes.co.…