Pornhub agrees to age checks in the UK, amid ongoing push-back in France

As porn platforms continue to push back against age verification requirements in Europe, the UK's Internet regulator has announced that major adult content companies have agreed to age checks on their websites in the UK from 25 July.

The age checks headed to porn platforms, including Pornhub, in the UK come in response to the country's Online Safety Act - a law containing substantial fines, of up to 10% of global annual turnover, for any non compliance.

Ofcom, the UK's regulator, says it is up to the porn platforms which type of checks they implement. "We just set out that it has to be highly effective - and at the moment there are seven methods that meet this," a spokesperson said.

Under Ofcom's guidelines, platforms can currently offer methods including facial age estimation, open banking, credit card checks and email-based age estimate for a user to check their age online.

A spokesperson for Pornhub's parent company Aylo told Euractiv its platforms would offer a variety of age check options to UK users, based on the list provided by Ofcom. It also welcomed Ofcom's approach, confirming it will introduce age checks from July 25.

"Ofcom has consulted with industry stakeholders and has presented a variety of flexible methods of age assurance that are less intrusive than we have seen in other jurisdictions," the company said in a statement.

None of the seven age check methods that Ofcom has currently approved as "highly effective" are the device-level age verification idea that Aylo has been lobbying for in France, where the government also wants porn platforms to verify users' age as a child protection measure.

France is facing an uphill battle to enforce age verification for porn at the national level. Although laws were introduced requiring porn platforms to implement robust age verification, their enforcement is currently suspended due to a legal dispute between the French government and porn companies over jurisdiction.

Four porn platforms - including Pornhub - are also separately under investigation by the European Commission which suspects them of failing to implement effective age verification on platforms that are regulated as VLOPs under  the pan-EU Digital Services Act.

(nl)