The operator of pornography website Fapello has been fined £630,000 by Ofcom for failing to introduce any age verification checks — and then ignoring the regulator’s requests for information.
Since July 2025, sites offering adult content have been legally required to use “highly effective” age assurance to ensure UK visitors are 18 or older. But Ofcom’s investigation, opened in November, found Fapello had not put any checks in place at all.
“Fapello fined £630,000 by Ofcom for failing to implement any age checks to prevent children accessing adult content.”
“Age checks are no longer optional for porn sites in the UK,” said George Lusty, Ofcom’s director of enforcement. “They are a cornerstone of our laws to protect children from content they should not be seeing.”
On Thursday, the regulator imposed a £600,000 penalty for the failure to verify users’ ages. An additional £30,000 was added after the company did not respond to requests for information on time. “Providers also need to know that if they don’t supply accurate information to us on time, when we request it, they should expect to face enforcement action, including fines,” Lusty added.
Although Fapello has since blocked UK visitors, Ofcom says it will continue to monitor compliance.
The fine is the latest in a series of enforcement actions. In May, Ofcom fined YoungTek Solutions £600,000 for failing to check ages. Earlier, it levied a £1.35m penalty on another adult site operator. But the regulator has faced scrutiny over whether fines alone are enough: in December it emerged that a firm slapped with a £1m fine had never been heard from, though it later began complying.
Ofcom is also in an ongoing dispute with the online message board 4chan over its refusal to pay a £520,000 fine. A lawyer for the firm has responded to Ofcom’s threats with AI-generated cartoon images of hamsters.
Websites can verify ages through credit card checks, photo ID matching, or estimating age from a selfie — as long as the method is “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair”, the regulator says.
On Thursday, Ofcom opened a new investigation into another porn provider, Bit Hive, citing concern that one of its age check methods “may not be highly effective”.