Consultation: Guidance for service providers publishing pornographic content

This is the second of four major consultations that Ofcom, as the appointed online safety regulator, will publish as part of our work to establish the new regulations under the Online Safety Act (2023).

Currently, services publishing pornographic content online do not have sufficient measures in place to prevent children from accessing this content. Many grant children access to pornographic content without age checks, or by relying on checks that only require the user to confirm that they are over the age of 18.

The Online Safety Act is clear that service providers publishing pornographic content online must implement age assurance which is highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a user is a child to prevent children from normally encountering their online pornographic content.

This consultation focuses on our draft guidance to assist providers of online services that publish or display regulated provider pornographic content in complying with their age assurance and record-keeping duties under the Act.

Alongside the consultation, we have published draft guidance (PDF, 706.1 KB) on age assurance and other Part 5 duties for service providers publishing pornographic content on online services (Annex 2).

We have also published a simple explainer of the Part 5 duties and draft guidance.

How to respond

To respond to the proposals in our consultation, please complete the consultation response form (ODT, 100.2 KB) and submit it to Part5Guidance@ofcom.org.uk. Please include any supporting information or evidence with your response.

The deadline for responses is 5pm on Tuesday 5 March 2024.