Ofcom has fined the operator of a pornography site £630,000 for failing to properly check the ages of its users, with regulators warning that “age checks are no longer optional for porn sites in the UK”.
The company behind the site Fapello had not introduced any checks and also did not reply to requests for information on time, the regulator said. Ofcom opened its investigation in November, before handing down a £600,000 penalty on Thursday for the failure to implement age assurance, alongside an additional £30,000 for the delayed response.
“Ofcom fines porn site operator £630,000 for failing to implement age checks to protect children.”
“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.”
The fine follows a string of penalties issued by Ofcom in recent months. In May, the regulator fined porn company YoungTek Solutions £600,000 over similar failings. Prior to that, a £1.35m fine was levied on another adult site operator for not introducing age checks. Despite the enforcement, Ofcom has faced scrutiny over the effectiveness of its actions – in December it emerged the regulator had never heard from a firm handed a £1m fine, though that company later began complying.
While the site behind Thursday’s fine has since blocked UK visitors, Ofcom said it would continue to monitor compliance. The regulator is also locked in an ongoing dispute with online message board 4chan over a £520,000 fine, which a lawyer for the firm has repeatedly mocked with AI-generated cartoon images of hamsters.
Meanwhile, Ofcom announced it had opened a new investigation into another porn provider, Bit Hive, citing concern that one of its age check methods “may not be highly effective”. The regulator has set out acceptable methods including credit card checks, photo ID matching and age estimation using a selfie, requiring that they be “technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair”.