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- Ofcom publishes industry guidance on effective age checks to prevent children from encountering online porn and protect them from other harmful content
- Pornography services must introduce age checks by July 2025 at latest
- Enforcement programme opening to monitor industry compliance
Children will be prevented from encountering online pornography and protected from other types of harmful content under Ofcom’s [new industry guidance](/online-safety/protecting-children/statement-age-assurance-and-childrens-access) which sets out how we expect sites and apps to introduce highly effective age assurance.
Today’s decisions are the next step in Ofcom implementing the Online Safety Act and creating a safer life online for people in the UK, particularly children. It follows tough industry standards, announced last month, to tackle illegal content online, and comes ahead of broader protection of children measures which will launch in the Spring.
Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the Online Safety Act. It requires services which allow pornography or certain other types of harmful content to introduce ‘age assurance’ to ensure that children are not normally able to encounter it.\[1\] Age assurance methods – which include age verification, age estimation or a combination of both – must be ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child.
We have today published industry guidance on how we expect age assurance to be implemented in practice for it to be considered highly effective. Our approach is designed to be flexible, tech-neutral and future-proof. It also allows space for innovation in age assurance, which represents an important part of a wider safety tech sector where the UK is a global leader\[2\]. We expect the approach to be applied consistently across all parts of the online safety regime over time.
While providing strong protections to children, our approach also takes care to ensure that privacy rights are protected and that adults can still access legal pornography. As platforms take action to introduce age assurance over the next six months, adults will start to notice changes in how they access certain online services. Our evidence suggests that the vast majority of adults (80%) are broadly supportive of age assurance measures to prevent children from encountering online pornography.\[3\]
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- Ofcom publishes industry guidance on effective age checks to prevent children from encountering online porn and protect them from other harmful content - Pornography services must introduce age checks by July 2025 at latest - Enforcement programme opening to monitor industry compliance Children will be prevented from encountering online pornography and protected from other types of harmful content under Ofcom’s [new industry guidance](/online-safety/protecting-children/statement-age-assurance-and-childrens-access) which sets out how we expect sites and apps to introduce highly effective age assurance. Today’s decisions are the next step in Ofcom implementing the Online Safety Act and creating a safer life online for people in the UK, particularly children. It follows tough industry standards, announced last month, to tackle illegal content online, and comes ahead of broader protection of children measures which will launch in the Spring. Robust age checks are a cornerstone of the Online Safety Act. It requires services which allow pornography or certain other types of harmful content to introduce ‘age assurance’ to ensure that children are not normally able to encounter it.\[1\] Age assurance methods – which include age verification, age estimation or a combination of both – must be ‘highly effective’ at correctly determining whether a particular user is a child. We have today published industry guidance on how we expect age assurance to be implemented in practice for it to be considered highly effective. Our approach is designed to be flexible, tech-neutral and future-proof. It also allows space for innovation in age assurance, which represents an important part of a wider safety tech sector where the UK is a global leader\[2\]. We expect the approach to be applied consistently across all parts of the online safety regime over time. While providing strong protections to children, our approach also takes care to ensure that privacy rights are protected and that adults can still access legal pornography. As platforms take action to introduce age assurance over the next six months, adults will start to notice changes in how they access certain online services. Our evidence suggests that the vast majority of adults (80%) are broadly supportive of age assurance measures to prevent children from encountering online pornography.\[3\]