Inside the guide
- What age verification looks like with the Online Safety Act
- How will age verification work?
- What does age verification mean for your child?
- Tips to protect your child from adult content
What age verification looks like with the Online Safety Act
Under the Online Safety Act (2023), websites and apps that display or publish pornographic content and other illegal content must prevent children from seeing it on their platform. These rules are a part of Ofcom’s effort to make the internet safer. Ofcom is the UK’s online safety regulator and is working to hold platforms accountable when it comes to protecting users from harmful content online.
These platforms must use highly effective age assurance to protect children from seeing pornographic or illegal content. Age assurance can include:
- Age verification: Confirming the age of a user;
- Age estimation: Estimating a user’s age based on online behaviour or activities, such as the accounts they follow or interact with.
Currently, age assurance is only required for under-18s from accessing this content.
Requirements for platforms where users share pornography
Platforms and apps that let users share and upload pornography (‘user-generated’ pornography) must ensure under-18s cannot see this content, even if they do not provide pornography themselves.
Without implementing highly effective age assurance, platforms will struggle to confirm that users are over 18.
How will age verification work?
Ofcom has published a list of age assurance methods it considers to be highly effective at checking whether someone is a child. These include:
- open banking
- photo-identification (photo-ID) matching
- facial age estimation
- mobile-network operator (MNO) age checks
- credit card checks
- digital identity services
- email-based age estimation.
They do not consider methods such as entering a birthday or allowing parents to vouch for their child as highly effective.
Platforms must choose a method that is highly effective based on four criteria:
- technical accuracy
- robustness
- reliability
- fairness.
Ofcom has provided platforms with practical steps to fulfil each criterion.
Who will enforce the law?
If platforms fail to comply with the Act, Ofcom are able to fine companies up to £18m or 10% of their worldwide revenue. They can also take criminal action against senior managers and platforms who do not cooperate. In extreme cases, Ofcom has powers to stop access to a website entirely in the UK.
When do age verification requirements come into force?
From 17 January 2025, platforms that publish their own pornographic content must have highly effective age assurance checks in place.
For platforms that host user-generated pornography, age verification requirements are expected to apply from July 2025, subject to Ofcom publishing further guidance and rules.
What does age verification mean for your child?
The same way that protections are in place to restrict children from entering sex shops on the high street, this will create a safety net for children’s protection online.
Although age verification is not a silver bullet, these measures should mean younger children are less likely to stumble across or access pornographic content online.
How will it impact privacy and data?
Platforms must follow UK data protection laws when choosing and using age assurance tools. This means they must consider privacy from the start and apply a ‘data protection by design’ approach.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published guidance to help companies use age assurance in a way that protects users’ personal data.
Tips to protect your child from adult content
Although age verification should help prevent children from seeing adult content, it’s important to combine this with other measures to keep children safe online.
- Set parental controls and content restrictions on broadband and mobile networks. Then, explore other parental controls on devices and in apps or platforms your child uses.
- There is no substitute for being engaged in your child’s digital world. Have regular, honest and open conversations with children about what they’re doing online.
- Build their digital resilience by discussing what to do if they do see something that upsets them. This can help them recover better from exposure and encourage them to make smarter and safer choices online.
If your child accidentally comes across pornography or actively seeks it out, they are likely to have questions about what they have seen. Visit our online pornography advice hub for practical tips.