Friday Is Final Av Compliance Deadline In Uk
Other types of adult sites, such as studios and paysites, have already fallen under the rules of the Online Safety Act (OSA), which Ofcom is charged with enforcing.
“Today we are extending our existing age assurance enforcement program — previously focused on studio porn services — to cover all platforms that allow users to share pornographic material, whether they are dedicated adult sites or other services that include pornography,” Ofcom announced in a statement issued Thursday. “We will be actively checking compliance from 25 July and, should it be necessary, we expect to launch any investigations into individual services next week. These would add to 11 Ofcom investigations already in progress.”
“Ofcom is ready to enforce against any company which allows pornographic content and does not comply with age-check requirements by the deadline,” the statement warns.
Issuance of guidelines and enforcement actions under the OSA have been slowly ramping up since the law took effect in 2023. Ofcom released its age assurance guidelines in January and has performed various forms of outreach to make information available to adult sites and platforms to enable compliance with the OSA.
In April, the agency stated that providers of online pornography were already implementing age assurance across “thousands of sites” accessible in the U.K. in response to Ofcom’s OSA enforcement program.
