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Ofcom: age assurance duties under the Online Safety Act

Ofcom guidance outlines highly effective age assurance requirements under what is highly effective age assurance and why is it important, binding Part 3 user-to-user services and Part 5 pornography publishers under how to determine if your service is required to implement highly effective age assurance publishers of pornography part 5 services to protect children.

Verified at publication, 2026-11-12 11:44 UTC

7 provisions in 4 parts · official text ↗

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impact by vertical

Summary

What this law does

Provides guidance under the Online Safety Act on age assurance duties, explaining how in-scope user-to-user services and publishers of pornographic content must implement highly effective age assurance to prevent children from encountering harmful content and access.

Why it matters to Signicat and its customers

No Signicat-specific relevance narrative is stored for this instrument; the stored applicability is shown below.

Who is bound: service providers; in-scope services; services that allow harmful content; Part 3 services; user-to-user services; Part 5 service providers; publishers of pornography · Regulators: Ofcom

Media Entertainment
Mandates highly effective age assurance for online user-to-user services and pornography publishers to prevent children accessing harmful content.

Key obligations each linked to the provision it comes from

Part summaries

0 of 0 parts have a verified summary.

L1 unavailable for current verification: the overall summary needs every part verified. Provisions and the verified summaries remain readable.

Verification findings (12)

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 main

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#chunk-1

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 what-is-highly-effective-age-assurance-and-why-is-it-important

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#what-is-highly-effective-age-assurance-and-why-is-it-important

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#what-is-highly-effective-age-assurance-and-why-is-it-important-future-expansions-to-age-restrictions

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance-user-to-user-services-part-3-services

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance-publishers-of-pornography-part-5-services

synthesis coverage: missing/unverified L2 further-guidance-and-resources

synthesis coverage: missing evaluation uk:ofcom/age-assurance#further-guidance-and-resources

Instrument tier unavailable

Change history as published

No captured publisher history.

Pending effects amendments not yet applied to this text

No captured pending effects.

Full TOC · table of contents Collapse parts

4 parts · 7 provisions. Open a provision for its text and, where available, its one-line summary.

· 1 provisions
chunk 1 uk:ofcom/age-assurance#chunk-1
What is highly effective age assurance and why is it important? · 2 provisions
What is highly effective age assurance and why is it important? uk:ofcom/age-assurance#what-is-highly-effective-age-assurance-and-why-is-it-important
Future expansions to age restrictions uk:ofcom/age-assurance#what-is-highly-effective-age-assurance-and-why-is-it-important-future-expansions-to-age-restrictions
How to determine if your service is required to implement highly effective age assurance · 3 provisions
How to determine if your service is required to implement highly effective age assurance uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance
User-to-user services (Part 3 services) uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance-user-to-user-services-part-3-services
Publishers of pornography (Part 5 services) uk:ofcom/age-assurance#how-to-determine-if-your-service-is-required-to-implement-highly-effective-age-assurance-publishers-of-pornography-part-5-services
Further guidance and resources · 1 provisions
Further guidance and resources uk:ofcom/age-assurance#further-guidance-and-resources

Impact profile

Transportation
0
Banking finance
0
Public sector health
0
Energy, utilities & telco
0
Insurance pensions
0
Services
0
Media entertainment
3
Manufacturing construction
0
Commerce
1

Dimensions

Mechanism strength
3
Signicat obligation
1
Urgency
Pending

Penalties

Statutory fines up to 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue or £18 million under what is highly effective age assurance and why is it important.

Definitions

No captured definitions.

References

No captured related instruments.