Ofcom has launched an investigation into Pornhub proprietor, Aylo, over whether or not the location’s new age checks are successfully stopping kids from accessing grownup content material.
The regulator mentioned in Could that Pornhub began utilizing a brand new age verification course of for some customers, which relied on a 3rd social gathering, Apple.
It mentioned it had issues that Aylo “might not have performed enough due diligence and testing” earlier than implementing this new course of, and so it “will not be extremely efficient” at stopping kids from seeing pornography.
In a prolonged assertion given to the BBC, Aylo strongly defended its system for age verification whereas stressing it might cooperate totally with the investigation.
Beneath the UK’s On-line Security Act (OSA), websites that host pornographic materials should use extremely efficient age assurance to make sure customers are over 18, nevertheless it leaves it as much as the service to resolve the strategy of age-checking it’s going to use.
Ofcom says as a part of its investigation it’s going to think about how Aylo implements its age verification processes and whether or not it performed the “essential due diligence” earlier than it was applied.
It is not going to examine how Apple operates its age checks.
George Lusty, Ofcom’s Director of Enforcement, mentioned: “On-line age checks are a significant safety to forestall kids from encountering inappropriate or dangerous materials, together with pornography.
“We anticipate tech corporations to make sure age checks are extremely efficient earlier than introducing them. Something much less may go away kids in danger.”
However Aylo argues that, having experimented in a number of markets with a number of age-check strategies, Apple’s system “supplies considerably stronger safety than another age assurance methodology at present accessible within the UK market”.
It additionally notes that Ofcom had beforehand praised Apple’s know-how as “an actual win for kids and households”.
Aylo argues a system based mostly on asking particular person pornographic websites to verify customers ages, merely drives customers to riskier websites that are not following Ofcom’s guidelines.
Analysis by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, external has beforehand steered that non-compliant websites “may be extra prone to host dangerous or unlawful content material, and in some circumstances, sexual photos of youngsters”.
Beneath the OSA, Ofcom holds the ability to effective non-compliant corporations as much as £18 million or 10% of their annual international turnover, whichever is bigger.
This probe is simply the most recent conflict between the regulator and what is without doubt one of the world’s most considered porn websites.
In October 2025 Pornhub said site visitors from UK customers had plunged by greater than 75% following the introduction of extra strong age checks by the OSA.
Some have questioned whether or not individuals had been merely utilizing Digital Personal Networks (VPN) to get across the checks as an alternative.
In January, Pornhub announced it might prohibit entry to its web site within the UK, blaming the more durable checks, with solely individuals who had beforehand made a Pornhub account in a position to entry its content material.
Aylo mentioned that updates to the Act requiring age verification had “not achieved its aim of defending minors”.
Nevertheless, in Could, it said it might be making the location accessible once more for some UK Apple customers who had confirmed their age with the corporate’s most modern model of iOS, its cell working system.
