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Home » UK porn age verification: How will it work and what will happen to your data? – UK Times
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UK porn age verification: How will it work and what will happen to your data? – UK Times

By uk-times.com24 July 2025No Comments4 Mins Read
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The UK is about to launch some of the strongest checks on pornography in the world.

From Friday, any website offering pornographic content to users in the UK must check that their users are actually over 18, or face heavy fines.

It marks a major change in how users get around the web, locking out younger people and requiring significant checks on older ones.

Visitors to adult websites might now have to submit credit card information or take pictures of themselves before they are able to access the websites.

It remains unclear exactly how the checks will work – or whether they will work at all. But here is everything you need to know about the UK’s incoming new regime for accessing adult websites.

Why is this happening?

The new rules are part of the UK’s Online Safety Act. That law was passed in 2023 and includes a whole host of new rules, largely covering online content.

Not all of it is about pornography. The rules cover everything from traditional social media sites to pornographic websites, and look to limit not just adult content but also online harassment and abuse.

But much of the focus in recent days has turned to adult websites, which must integrate the new age checks by 25 July, because of a deadline from Ofcom.

The regulator has said that the new rules are required to create “a safer life online for people in the UK, particularly children”.

The rules do not only cover explicitly pornographic websites, such as Pornhub. Other services where users might come into contact with adult materials must also introduce the checks, which includes everything from social networks such as X and Reddit to dating apps such as Grindr – all of which have committed to introduce their own new rules.

How will it work?

Ofcom allows the websites to choose for themselves, to some degree. While it offered a range of guidance, the real demand is that websites launch effective age checks, that can really make sure that their users are adults.

Its suggestions include checking through banking details or through phone networks, matching with a photo ID, or devoted online identity services. It also made clear that existing checks such as simply asking visitors to declare their own age will not be allowed.

Websites and services are likely to use a range of different options. But they will be required to do something that Ofcom judges to be “highly effective”.

If websites do not integrate the checks, they can face heavy fines. The new law allows companies to be fined up to £18 million or 10 per cent of their global revenue.

Some may however opt to limit access entirely. In many places where officials have added similar rules – some states in the US, for instance – pornographic websites have instead blocked their websites, and tend to replace them with a message asking visitors to lobby politicians to change the rules.

Is it safe?

Websites with age checks – and the services that those websites use to do them – have rushed to advise users that their details will be safe. Many include terms and conditions focused on privacy, assuring visitors that only the fact they are adults will be saved, for instance, and not the personal data used to make that check.

But as with so much personal data online, those assurances are only as valuable as the company or person making them is trustworthy. So it will be worth checking through the terms and online reviews of any company that is offering such checks, especially if they are doing so by taking potentially personal or embarrassing details.

Will the checks work?

It remains to be seen. But already there are a host of ways that users might try and get around the checks.

The rules are only in effect for visitors from UK-based addresses, for instance. That means that people using a virtual private network to pretend that they are accessing from another different country where checks are not required will be able to skip past them.

Most of the age checks are also expected to be tied to a login. That means that even if users have verified their account as belonging to an adult, the account could be used by people who are under 18.

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