The Online Safety Act introduces new rules to make sure children are protected from accessing pornography.
As the UK’s online safety regulator, Ofcom is responsible for implementing these rules, which apply to platforms that publish their own pornographic material, and which host user-generated content.
The rules are part of a broader effort to make the internet safer and to make sure online sites and platforms have measures in place to protect their users from harmful content.
All services which allow pornography must have highly effective age-checks in place by July 2025 to protect children from accessing it.
While affording strong protection to children, our approach will make sure privacy rights are safeguarded and that adults can still access legal pornography.
The rules apply to any platform that can be accessed by users in the UK, or which target the UK market, regardless of where in the world the platform is based.
The rules apply to different types of pornography
The Online Safety Act divides online pornography services into two categories.
- Platforms that publish their own pornographic content, such as studios or pay sites, where operators control the material available. Under the Act, these are known as ‘Part 5 services’.
- Platforms hosting user-generated content, such as tube sites, cam sites, and fan platforms. These are known as ‘Part 3 services’.
What are services required to do, and by when?
In January 2025, Ofcom will issue guidance on how we expect services to implement highly effective age assurance in practice. This approach will apply consistently to all relevant services. From January:
- Platforms that publish their own pornographic content (Part 5 services) must take immediate steps to start introducing highly effective age assurance measures, in line with our guidance. Services can read a summary of Ofcom’s draft proposals here.
- Sites which allow user-generated pornographic content (Part 3 services) must carry out assessments to confirm whether under-18s are able to access content on their platforms according to our children’s access assessments guidance which will be published in January. Unless they are already using highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing pornography, we expect them to be caught by all the child safety duties – including age assurance requirements – which will be published in April 2025.
- In addition Part 3 services will be expected to start taking steps to comply with their duties to protect people from illegal content from December 2024. Services will have three months to complete an “Illegal Content Risk Assessment”, writing down which measures they are taking, or plan to take. Services should be prepared to implement measures to tackle illegal harms from April 2025.
This means that by July 2025, all platforms that must have a highly effective age assurance solution in place to protect under 18s. This is the case whether a service publishes its own pornographic content or allows user-generated pornographic content.
Ofcom is working to ensure the adult industry is aware of the upcoming requirements and has the information they need to comply.
You can read more about the different milestones in implementing the Online Safety Act in our roadmap.